Pipinghot

That's true, but WildCard plans to use OW anyway. The thing to keep in mind is that WildCard (which in reality means Snail Games, which in reality means Shi Hai who basically owns everything) wants to move into the world of web3 (translation: microtransactions) for PC gaming. They'll never call it microtransactions, they'll never admit it's microtransactions, they'll deny it's microtransactions, but really it's microtransactions. If you look at the announcements that started all of the fracas you'll see they talk about using Overwolf as part of their plan to add mods to consoles, but more importantly to enable premium mods that you have to pay money to use. They're pretending that this is for the benefit of content creators who can get 50% of the revenue from their mods, but that they're not saying is that they're only paying 50% when it should be more like 70% or 80%. For comparison, if you sell a game on Steam or GoG they only take 30%, but WC is going to take 50% from content creators. Also, Shi Hai doesn't dislike RMT's (real money transactions) like most players do, the only thing he cares about is that he wants WildCard to get cut of the action when players sell things to each other for money. Most of us think of it as cheating, he just thinks of it as additional profit for himself. Shi Hai and others like him will talk-talk-talk a bunch about how its for the benefit of content creators when really it's for the game company because web3/blockchain/NFTs makes it possible for the company to make money whenever players sell things to each other. What they're trying to do is use the same methods they use in mobile games (make players pay extra money in order to progress faster, or in PvP pay-to-win) and bring those methods to PC games.

@AscensionVibe I recommend that it will be better for you to think in terms of 2016 rather than 2015, there were a lot of changes happening during the first few months of Early Access that aren't really part of the standard conversation when we talk about rates being changed. There were many small tweaks that almost no one is going to be able to remember or tell you about. Examples: Patch 171.8 "Increased the yield of metal ore gained from metal-type rocks with non-metal tools by 3x." This has nothing to do with the two different times that WC increased harvesting rates by x2 for the game. Patch 172.3 "Base Food/Water Resource consumption rates reduced by 25% each." Patch 174.0 "Tripled the metal content of metal and rich-metal rocks" ...and so on. There are lots of little items like that during the first few months of the game. So, if you set your harvesting and XP settings to =0.25 you'll have a pretty good feeling for what it was like to play in 2016, and don't worry about all the little things that happened during the first 6 months of Early Access during 2015.

There are two settings related to harvesting. HarvestAmountMultiplier= (the amount of resources you harvest with each strike/grab/swing) HarvestHealthMultiplier= (the total amount of resources per node/bush/stone/tree) 1) The HarvestAmountMultiplier= has definitely been multiplied x2 twice since 2015 (so a net total of x4). If you want the amount you harvest per strike/grab/swing to be the same as it was in 2015 you want to set this value to 0.25, like so: HarvestAmountMultiplier=0.25 2) I'm not 100% certain whether the other setting has also been tweaked since 2015, but I think it has. This is an educated guess based on how long it takes to harvest nodes. If the health multiplier had not been tweaked then practically every dino would harvest all resource nodes in a single swing which would feel weird and unbalanced. If I were you, I would also set this to 0.25 and then, if harvesting doesn't feel right after you play for a while, change this value to something that feels better. HarvestHealthMultiplier=0.25

But... what if I want to improve my lovemaking potential by drinking 4 gallons of CBD oil per day, where will I go to find that information now?

"Hey everyone check it out, I make this look good... too bad it's useless."

As far as I know there's only 1 cave with bulbdogs on Gen 1. There are also Lunar biome caves with Ravagers. Since it's a riddle it doesn't have to be strictly literal, "hanging with some playful pups" could also mean ravagers. Obviously that's not as safe a place to leave something for you as the bulbdog cave would be, but maybe he left you something tough enough that it can handle the ravagers when you show up.

And that's the problem. Again, you don't have the right to speak for people other than yourself, unless they've agree for you to speak for them. You can speak about them, you can talk about the number of people who are complaining on reddit, youtube, etc. but you can't speak for them, you are not their representative. I'm starting to wonder if this is something that's lost in translation. I get the feeling that English is not your native language (that's not a criticism, I'm only fluent in one language, I respect multi-lingual people) and that may be causing a problem in this discussion. To me (and to GP) there's a strong and obvious difference between speaking for people and speaking about them. Is that difference obvious to you also, or do I need to find some other way to try to communicate why there is an issue here?

Well that's the point, you don't get to do that. You don't have the right to claim that you're speaking for people who didn't vote for you, didn't agree to it, who don't know that you're speaking for them. You can speak about them, but you can't speak for them, because they haven't agreed for you to do so. You have every right to be honest about how you feel, what you like, what you dislike. You just don't have the right to speak for people that haven't agreed to it.

Well, you did claim you were "talking for all PC and console players." Describing that as "being on a high horse" seems appropriate. Again, I'm on your side that WC is being terrible, but we can't have an honest conversation if we don't admit when other people make good points. Being upset is not an excuse for dismissing his point when it's reasonable.

GP is making a good point, it also seems to me that you misinterpreted what he said. Keep in mind I support your right to be unhappy with WC, but that doesn't mean we can just ignore people when they make good points. If we can't admit when other people make a good point then we can't have an honest conversation.

Nope, not "wriggling out of" anything, false accusations aren't going to get you anywhere. 1) I admitted I was wrong about SP. 2) Everything else still stands. "Personally, I wouldn't count on that lasting too long. Game companies are notoriously bad at supporting games that are not the current version they're selling, worse than the rest of the software industry. If you're currently doing a play though on an unofficial, private or non-dedicated server, or in single-player, I would focus on finishing that play through. Do not trust WC to keep the game working for more than a few months after ASA is released. I mean, maybe it will keep working, I could be wrong, but the smart money says it would be a bad idea to trust them on this." Yup, that message still stands. Of course you have the right to disagree with it all you want, you can trust WC if you want to, and you can try to convince other people to trust WC if you want to. But the only wriggling here has been you trying to stick a false accusation.

I would argue that functionality deserves a D or F, but of course it's hard to agree on a grade for something that subjective. The basic problem with ARK is that the concept is so good that it has been a machine the prints money in spite of being a terrible product with terrible customer support (not the fault of the actual devs or the customer support employees, btw, these are problems caused by management decisions). WC has never needed to become a better company, their product just keeps making money no matter how terrible the decisions are by their management team (I'm looking at you, Extinction map). Compare that to Atlas, which completely failed to reproduce the success of ARK. In my view that's because Atlas fails to make people happy in the same way that ARK does, so with Atlas players actually care about the poor execution and poor customer support. WC still hasn't figured out that most of their success is because "dinosaurs are cool". In spite of the failure of Atlas they still don't understand that if Atlas had been their first game they probably wouldn't exist today. ARK was so successful right from the very beginning that WC never had an incentive to improve the quality, it's such a cool game that people have been willing to throw money at them in spite of the many failings of the game. WC never needed to get better at fixing bugs, they made money anyway. WC never needed to get better at customer service, they made money anyway. Something about the concept behind ARK speaks to people so viscerally that lots and lots of folks are willing to overlook all of the terrible stuff and keep playing anyway. Having said that, they made two absolute genius moves in the original concept: 1) Flexibility - no matter what flavor of ARK you want it's available - official, unofficial, private, single-player. You can customize the game to be whatever experience you want it to be. 2) Mod support - they wholeheartedly supported mods right from the very beginning (something many games fail to do) which also allows players to completely cusomize the game experience to their liking. Those two decisions have allowed the game to overcome it's terrible execution and terrible customer support. WC made some great decisions when first designing the game (dinosaurs, multiple game modes, mod support) and those decisions have allowed the game to flourish in spite of the fact their execution has always been bad.

In the general sense, yes, the conversations here echoed in conversations that happen on the Steam forums, Reddit, game journalism and youtubers. Is it representative in terms of being an accurate statistical sampling of how people will "vote" when they decide whether or not to spend more money on ARK products? I have no idea. Lots of people are angry or dissatisfied with WC/Snail, is the percentage of dissatisfied posters here the same as the dissatisfied percentage of players in ARK overall? Couldn't tell you. I think all viewpoints are reflected in the various conversations on these forums, but not necessarily in the same proportions or percentages that those viewpoints are held by the player base as a whole. I hope this scam causes them significant financial harm, enough that they become a takeover target by some other company. But that's just one person's opinion. The only way WC/Snail will get any more of my money is if they change course and charge $10-15 for ASA, it's not worth a penny more.

It was just a joke, I had hoped that the wink would make that obvious. I guess next time I need to include the more obvious /jk

So when you complain over and over again it's fine, but when she does it she sounds like a troll? How are her concerns less legit than yours?

I accept your apology.

In this thread my p was small, which is unusual for me... ladies.

You're arguing about something that has nothing to do with my post. if you want to have a theological debate with yourself about the meaning of a passage in Proverbs then more power to you, but I didn't quote "Proverbs", with a capital "P" which is a book in the bible. I quoted a "proverb" with a small "p" which has been in common usage for a long, long time. If you take a moment to reflect it should dawn on you that "Proverbs" and "a proverb" are two very different things. Feel free to argue about Proverbs all you want with your friend Mr. Straw Man, but it has nothing to do with me or anything I've posted.

If you say you're not going to post again it doesn't matter what your reason is, you're still going back on your word and making it obvious that you weren't being honest the first time, the truth was you were just having a tantrum. If you want to post, then post. If you want to disagree, then disagree. If you want to argue, then argue. That's what forums are for. But announcing that you're taking your toys and going home is both meaningless and foolish. The takeaways here is that it's never a smart move to say you're done posting, it just makes you look foolish when you post again. Mmmhmm. Congratulations on knowing how google works. /slow clap

Let's be clear here, can I 100% guarantee that all of the old bugs will be imported into UE5? Well no, obviously not, it's always possible that something or few things might get fixed simply by running the game under UE5. But, there will also be new bugs that are caused by importing a UE4 game into UE5, that's just normal. So if there was one or two specific bugs that caused you to quit the game well... maybe those 1 or 2 specific bug will be fixed (highly unlikely, but possible). But if the thing that made you quit was "too many bugs" or at least "too many important bugs", that's not going to be fixed. The game will be just as buggy under UE5 as it was under UE4.

So it wasn't your "last comment on this topic post", good to know you were just stomping your little foot and having a mini-tantrum. If you want to pay them $60.00 for $10-$15 worth of work that's your business, but your willingness to participate in a scam doesn't make it less of a scam. "There's a sucker born every minute" - attribution undercertain "A fool and his money are soon parted" - proverb

If you play ASE on an unofficial/private server it's not a "long bow" at all, it's a very reasonable scenario. * Many games lose multi-player support when they stop being supported by the developer. * Therefore it's reasonable to consider (not so assume, but to consider) that this might happen with ASE, just as with other games. * Therefore, it's a reasonable idea for players to consider how important it is to them to finish their current playthrough of ASE, before this might happen. WildCard has already done something almost no other company does, they're shutting down the official servers for ASE at the same time they roll out ASA. Not even crappy EA games does this, they keep official servers up for old versions of their various franchises even when they roll out the new games. If WildCard is doing something that even EA doesn't do, then it's only smart to consider that they might withdraw support for multi-player in ASE sooner rather than later. That's not "drawing long bow" it's just thinking and common sense. You're talking in circles. As already discussed, I'm not talking about the complete recall or deletion, I'm talking about withdrawing support. And in the context of this conversation "withdrawing support" means shutting down access to multi-player. Only about single-player. I never said they "have to", don't put words in my mouth. I said it's a good idea to think about it (depending on how much you trust WildCard). Agreed, you were right about SP.

You still haven't told us why you think that. WildCard has made exactly zero announcements about map sized, not one word. So why on earth are you still saying they "probably did but only slightly for story maps", there's no evidence that there's any truth to this.

You're proving my point for me. All of your examples are actual remakes, which is not what ASA is going to be. When someone does a remake they have to, you know, make it. They don't just copy/paste, change the name, change the cover and slap on a few new skins, which is what ASA is going to be. They wouldn't be scams, because someone actually made them. If took the original print of Incredible Journey, renamed it Homeward bound, and tried to publish it as a remake then everyone, including you, would all that a scam, and that's what they're doing with ASA. If you're happy to pay someone for copy/pasting their own game into a new title that's your business, but it's still not a remake, not a sequel, not even a remaster. That's just WC telling marketing lies. Wow, word twisting much? I'm judging it negatively, you're judging it positively, those are both "judging it". When you try to play word games like this you're not doing yourself any favors. The proof is in what WC has announced, it's their own words, their own description of what planning and doing. So unless you want to argue that WildCard's own announcements are untrue they've already announced to the world the evidence of what they're doing. The proof is their own words. No, they're keeping all of the "mechanics the same way", not "some" of them, all of them. Any changes to game mechanics they've announced (like improved pathing) are built into UE5, WildCard is not doing any of the work for that improved mechanic other than importing their game into UE5. If that's true then go ahead and do it. Looking forward to you "easily" proving it. Thank you for reinforcing one of the points I've been making. When WildCard imports ARK into UE5 there will be improvements that are created by running the game under UE5. That's not WC doing a lot of work, it's not a remake, it's not a remaster. It's an import into UE5, which, in case you need to be reminded, other companies have done for free and WildCard previously announced they would do for free. Any improvements that come from UE5 are not anything that WIldCard gets credit for and especially not trying to charge full price for. The work that WC is doing is worth the price of of a minor DLC, nothing more. So you're arguing that Atlas, which "stole 50-60%" from ARK is a scam, but ASA which will be stealing 90%-95% from ARK is not a scam. That's some impressive logic. You just described something that is not a new game, and then said it's a new game. Let's trying looking at this from different perspective. If you and I teamed up to start a game company, we got our hands on the source code for ARK and then we did exactly what WildCard is doing, do you think anyone would agree that we were publishing a new game? WildCard wouldn't think so, courts wouldn't think so, game journalists wouldn't think so, players wouldn't think so. No one would agree that you & I would be making a new game if we did exactly the same amount of work that WC will be doing on ASA. Obviously this is just an example, WildCard owns the rights to their code and we don't. But the point I'm making isn't about ownership, it's about what makes a "new" game and what doesn't. WildCard has the legal right to do what they're doing but that doesn't make it a new game. Hehe, maybe, we'll see if that ever happens, so far it's nothing more than vaporware and empty talk. But that's a delightful topic for another day. Yes, it's "supposed to be" a remake but it's not. We know it's not because WildCard has publicly described the work they're doing, and the work they're doing is not a remake. Anyone who thinks that importing into UE5 and reskinning some graphics is a "remake" or even a "remaster" is being dishonest or naive. Either they're doing what they say they're doing (which is neither a remake nor a remaster) or their marketing spin is true and they're doing a remaster instead of what they've said they're doing. The work they're doing is not a remake, not a remaster, no matter what their marketing spin says. Agreed, just like they've done for every DLC including the free ones. Adding a few new animals doesn't make it a remake, it means they're adding a little bit of new stuff just like they've done with every DLC. Like I've said before, ASA should be a $10-15 DLC, that's how much work WildCard is doing when they release it. It's an update, it's not a new game. Anyone who's willing to pay more than $10-$15 is just being a sucker for WC's marketing lies. That's the theory, I'll believe it when I see it. I understand you wanting that, everyone would enjoy that, but sadly that's not going to happen because that's not how it works in the real world. When you import a game from UE4 to UE5 it does not have "a lot less glitches", it will have more of them. Even if the only work you do is import the game it will automatically have some new glitches from the import process. Glitches & bugs do not go away when you import into a new game engine, that's not how it works. So the reality is that ASA will have more glitches on Day 1 than ASE has right now, and it will take time for WC to fix the new glitches before they can go back to working on old glitches. You're badly misunderstanding my point about ASA being a DLC. In no way am I saying that they should make a new DLC while keeping ARK in UE4. What I'm saying is that the work they're doing... 1) Importing into UE5 2) Changing the title and some graphical assets 3) Adding a few new animals ...is only as much work as a DLC and is only worth the price of a DLC. They're doing something that they originally promised they would do for free (import ASE into UE5) but now they're trying to charge full price for it and they're slapping on some new skins and using marketing spin to try to justify that price. That's why it's a scam. Charging $10-$15 for this work would be honest, even though they originally promised to do it for free, what makes it a scam is calling it a "remake" or a "remaster" and trying to charge full price. No one should fall for that.

There are already animals that do these things, why would they add NPC humans to do the exact same things animal do? They want you to worry about an offline raid happening, it's PvP. Or, play on an ORP server. Even if they added more animals and human NPC's to help defend your base, you will always, always have to worry about being raided, that's the whole point of a PvP server in ARK. Playing solo in PvP is always harder. No matter what they do that's just how it's going to be. If you choose to play solo then you choose to play the hard way, if you don't like that then find a tribe. WC has never had any desire to make PvP easier for solo players. So... that's not a bad idea, although it has nothing at all to do with NPC's. Unfortunately WC doesn't care about insiding, in fact they have specifically stated that they think insiding is ok and they're not going to stop it, but it would be nice if they changed their mind.