Pipinghot

Since you bring up context, let's talk about that. The problem is that you have an overly narrow interpretation of what people mean when they complain about "the devs". When people complain about "the devs" they almost never are specifically referring to the people who sit at their desks writing the computer code. What they mean is the development company, and most of the time that means the owners, leaders and managers who make the decision about how the developers' time will be allocated - new content, bug fixes, etc. While it's true that sometimes people use "the devs" to mean the people writing the code what they usually mean is the people at the development company who make the decisions that they are complaining about. You made the assumption that @WCpromoteslazinesswas only, and specifically, referring to the people who write the code, but from the context of his post it was clearly obvious that he was referring to the leaders and decision makers of the development company, yet you started arguing about the people who put their hands on the keyboard and write computer code. This whole exchange started because you chose a flawed interpretation of "the devs" that did not match the context of the thread overall, nor the context of the specific post you were replying to. "The devs" = Wildcard, and WildCard = "the devs", for you to assume that he explicitly meant the programmers was a bad interpretation on your part, especially given the context of his post in the overall discussion. When we consider that the context of "the devs" means "the people who own and manage the development company, the people who make the decisions about how the game will be developed, managed and operated" his comments are obviosly on target. Atlas was created, owned and operated and by the same people who were responsible for the creation and operation of WildCard & ARK (specifically Jesse Rapczak & Jeremy Stieglitz, two of the four founders of WC). The reality that permeates this whole discussion is that the same people have been the owners, operators and decision makers for both games since the very beginning, which means that WCpromoteslaziness was making a legitimate comparison. When he said, "those rats" he did not mean the developers who wrote the original computer code, he meant the owners and decision makers for both games. The owners and leaders of A and B are pretty much "one and the same people" (especially when you consider that Snail and it's CEO Shi Hai are on top of the pyramid for both of these games. The people who wrote the computer code didn't do these things but, "the devs" did. The idea that Studio WildCard, Grapeshotgames and Snail are separate companies is a legal business fiction. They are technically separate business entities on paper but in reality the same people are in the board room for all of them. "The devs" who run these companies are the same people everywhere you look. A game doesn't have to be shut down to be abandoned. Atlas is zombie game. For all intents and purposes it's been abandoned, with nothing meaningful being do with it for a long time. Again, this is about context, which you have pointed out is important. In the context of their post, "abandoned" did not mean shut down, again you're choosing the wrong interpretation. It meant a game that is in zombie mode with no serious efforts made to improve or expand it for quite some time. No, you've chosen to argue against wrong interpretations of their post, your out-of-context interpretations are the problem.

No, I'm definitely not, if you think that then you've gotten confused by the give-and-take of the conversation and you need to re-read it. Ok, this is a fair point, I used a the term "game engine ambiguously. Yes, no question about it, Unreal publishes the game engine (UE4). So for the portion of the game that was written by WC/ARK devs I'm going to call that the "game mechanics engine", the game mechanics engine is a layer that runs on top of the game engine. So with this in mind, let's revisit the things I've said about ARK & Atlas. The ARK developers wrote the game mechanics engine for ARK. That game mechanics engine was re-used by Snail for the game Atlas. At the time Atlas was released it was almost entirely just a reskin of the ARK game mechanics. This means that Atlas was mostly created by the ARK devs, with reskinning and a few changes done by the new company. Now none of this means that the failure of Atlas should be blamed on the original devs that wrote the game mechanics engine, which was used in both ARK and Atlas. I've certainly never made this claim and I wouldn't support it if someone else did. Neither the UE4 game engine nor the ARK game mechanics engine are responsible for the failure of Atlas, but that doesn't change the fact that the game mechanics engine used in Atlas was created by WildCard and their ARK development team.

That was not your original point, your first comment in this sequence came from WCpromoteslaziness and you said nothing of the sort when replying to him. This is the sequence: 1) WCpromoteslaziness: "Also the treasure map system was taken from Atlas another game these rats abandoned but in that you didnt need to pay for them " 2) Zeldei: "Atlas isn't A studio wildcard product." 3) Pipinghot: "While that's technically true it misses the point that you're replying too." 4) Zeldai: "I don't disagree that Atlas was an asset flip of ark. It was also made by snail, the publisher. The point being made is that it's not the ark devs." 5) Pipinghot: "Yes it was, at the time of release." 6) Zeldei: "As you admit, it was snail's corporate decisions that were largely responsible for Atlas and Dark and Light being failures, not the actual ARK devs, which brings us back to the original point I made that you can't say ASA will fail because it is the devs who brought you Atlas. It's a misleading argument as Atlas did not fail because of ARK game developers caused it to fail. Nor is the team who made ark the same team working on Atlas. " a) So no, that wasn't your original point, in your response to WCPromoteslazines you're clearly not addressing any argument about ASA failing because it was made by ARK devs. b) I'm pretty sure no one in this thread has said that ASA will fail because it is made by the devs who brought you Atlas. I'm not going to re-read every single post in the thread, but unless you can find a quote that expresses that sentiment, you're making up an argument to argue against. c) And, even if someone did say that, it had nothing to do with what WCpromoteslazines said, nor to do with your reply to him, nor to do with the details of subsequent exchanges between you and me.

That's a pretty low bar you're setting there. Better than awful is still not good. I mean, you're making a true statement, they're better than other companies that are worse, but that still doesn't mean that they meet the bar for being "good". I've played plenty of both games, going back almost to beta for both games, and submitted multiple support tickets for both games over the years, and I completely disagree with both elements of that statement. Even if we factor in that the customer service for Conan has degraded since FunCom was effectively bought by TenCent, they still have an overall better history of customer service and a better history of bug fixes than WC/ARK have had. Over the lifetime of these two games, WC has focused more on quantity over quality, FunCom has focused more on quality over quantity. And, to reiterate, all DLC's in Conan except for the 2nd map are entirely cosmetic, whereas almost all of the DLC for ARK has involved soft coercion on players to buy them or fall behind. They're doing it because they mismanaged the company and were about $13 million in debt with severely negative cash flow, requiring them to use a variety of dishonest tactics to get players to crowd-fund their continued existence. It's not really more complicated than that.

Yes it was, at the time of release. The game engine was created by the ARK devs, then it was reskinned by the new developer. And, you can bet your bottom dollar that many of the same names that were listed in the credits for developing ARK were also listed in the credits for developing Atlas. It was not merely an asset flip, both games had some/many of the same developers work on them. It's not at all the same. ARK and Atlas have the same code base whereas WoW & Overwatch don't share any code. ARK and Atlas are two games built from the same game engine, WoW and Overwatch are two entirely different games. That's sort of true, except for the fact that even back then WC/Snail were really one company. The idea that WC & Snail are not related to each other is a business-fiction. They are technically different business entities but really they're one company. Having said that, yes, it was mostly the Snail side of the business that was to blame for Atlas' failure, but it has to be acknowledged that he code base Atlas started with was the ARK game engine. Obviously it could be argued that this was a bad choice of game engine for Atlas and that WC/Snail should have chosen a different engine, but regardless of any good/bad decisions made by their management team, it's still true that "the ark devs are responsible" for the code that Atlas ran on. Yes, the ARK game engine was a better game engine for ARK than it was for Atlas.

Except it's not entirely accurate. You've already described Atlas as an asset flip, which means you should understand that the underlying game was made by WC and then re-skinned for Atlas. One of the biggest criticisms of Atlas was that it was very obviously ARK but reskinned. Or perhaps you'd prefer to see that described as a new game using the ARK game engine, which would also be a fair description, but that game engine was still made by WC. The graphics were made by the new studio, and changes continued to be made after release, but at the time of release the game engine was made by WC. Atlas was not made entirely by WC, but at the time of release (and for some time afterwards) it's fair to say that the majority of Atlas was made by WC.

Again, it's not that simple, WC made conflicting claims about what ASA was going to be. The only time they "literally advertised it as such" was when Jesse R. first tweeted (back in January of 2023) that they were going to port ARK from UE4 to UE5 for free. Every time after that they made claims of how new stuff was going to be added, and in about half of their claims the "new" stuff they were trying to take credit for were nothing more than improvements that would automatically happen as a result of importing into UE5 (like improved pathing for wild dinos, just to name one example). Not only did they make a bunch of claims about how they were adding new stuff, they tried to take credit for improvements that were built into the game engine. Ok, fair enough, the comment that I was replying to still looks to me as though you were disagreeing with WCpromoteslaziness, but I'm willing to accept your claim that I'm misreading your intent. Having said that, criticizing people who "complain about the latter" ignores how much, and how often, WC was deliberately deceitful about what ASA would be. They spent a lot of time trying to use marketing spin to avoid being honest about what they were actually going to deliver. Even back then I was arguing that WC was spinning yarns, but at the same time I have some sympathy for people who believed their marketing lies. It's hard to criticize people who fell for a carefully crafted campaign of disinformation. And even being billed as a remaster is an overblown claim. At the time of release it has been 95%-98% imported code/content and 2%-5% new/different stuff. For WC to call that a remaster is intrinsically dishonest. WC claimed they were bottling new water, and they promised it repeatedly. But WC has not billed this as merely a "UE5 update", that's not what they've been saying. They have billed it as a "remaster", with claims of the game being recoded and/or containing significant amounts of new content, none of which was true. Being in EA is entirely relevant. When one buys a title in Early Access the intrinsically implied agreement is "You pay us now, and we're going to work on this until it's completed and ready for full release. Then, and only then, we will begin work on expansions and paid DLC." That's what an honest Early Access looks like, anything else is unethical. Publishing DLC isn't an issue by itself, but it is an issue when they're selling DLC content for a game that isn't even finished yet. And since you brought up the topic of coercion, that's exactly what WC has historically done with their paid DLC's. During the entire run of ASE if you didn't buy the DLC's you were at a competitive disadvantage. Obviously this matters more in PvP than in PvE, but each of the paid DLC's introduced new stuff that gave people an advantage in the game. That's pretty much the definition of soft coercion. They didn't "force" anyone to buy the DLC's, but the alternative was falling behind the curve. Compare that to Conan Exiles, for example, in which all of the DLC's are purely cosmetic and offer zero advantage during game play. DLC that provides any form of competitive advantage is soft coercion. Nope, never going to agree with that. Early Access means "You're helping fund the completion of the base game, which we will complete before trying to sell any DLC." Considering that ASA still has many of the same bugs that have been plaguing ASE since it was in EA, that's an extremely debatable claim. Don't get me wrong, if you're happy with how much you paid and how much you got, then more power to you, you should enjoy the game if that's what's you want. But in no way does your personal sense of satisfaction mean that WC objectively delivered what they promised. Maybe to you, but to many people it's very material. A company that mismanaged their revenue and cash flow, that then turns around and asks the public to crowd-fund a re-release of what is 95% the exact same game, that's very material to lots of people. Oh no, I prefer FunCom's model - almost all DLC's (except for the 2nd map) are purely cosmetic and don't affect game play at all. Even Isle of Siptah didn't give a competitive advantage because the two maps are separate from each other. All DLC's in Conan give zero competitive advantage and players can choose to buy as much or as little of it as they want to, that's a clearly superior model from the player point of view.

Not true. They have also said at various points that ASA is "new", making claims about lots of brand new code, all of which were obviously false. Doug Kennedy even posted it on Twitter/X at least one time. WC has made quite a few false claims about ASA, they have not been honest about what has actually been done with the product. Except that's not what @WCpromoteslaziness did. What he did was make fun of people who are buying used water and believing that it was new. He didn't buy it and then complain, he made fun of people who bought it. There is when a game is still in Early Access. There is no governing body that makes rules about Early Access, which is all the more reason that players/customers should criticize companies who do it. It's entirely unethical, scummy and generally just a crappy way to treat customers. Beyond that, ASA should never have been EA to begin with, that was also unethical and scummy, unfortunately Steam and the other platforms are find with unethical, scummy behavior as long as they get a cut. WC/Snail have made around 2 billion dollars (that's with a "B", Billion) on the ARK properties over the years, much more than enough money to make a better product and have plenty of operating revenue for anything they wanted to do. This is blatant profiteering at the expense of customers. If you want to overspend for a substandard that's your choice, but then you need to understand that other people have every right to criticize people who mismanage their own company and then need to crowd-source an inferior upgrade thinly disguised as a "new" game. Companies do need to show a profit, and people also have the right to criticize them for mismanaging their company and their products.

While that's technically true it misses the point that you're replying too. 1) Atlas was created from the ARK codebase & game engine, which was created by WC. 2) Atlas is owned and published by Snail, but Snail & WC are really one company. On paper they're two different entities but in reality they're one company. No matter what they say on paper, the truth is that WC = Snail. 3) Atlas was heavily cross-promoted by WildCard when it was new. For a long time many people believed it was a WC game, which is why they played it in the first place. 4) No matter who owns which game, and no matter who owns which company, his point is still true. "The treasure map system was taken from Atlas" - that's a true statement regardless of whether Atlas is a WC product or not.

Not if you want to play with other people/friends.

None of your business, that's why. People want private servers because people want private servers, that's all you need to know.

It's funny how their "brand new" code keeps on repeating the exact same bugs as the original code did.

Because: 1) They can get away with it and there's no one to stop them. 2) Steam allows it, because Valve doesn't care if a game publisher is ethical or not, as long as people are willing to buy a game Steam is happy. 3) There are no standards for what is "Early Access" or not, no rules, no consumer protections in the game industry. If a publisher wants to be scummy and use EA as an excuse for a junky product then no one can stop them. The only option players have is to choose whether they want to support a company that does this. You have to vote with your dollars, if you give money to companies who sell DLC's while they're still in "early access" then they'll keep doing it. If you don't want companies to do this then you have to make the personal choice to refuse to give them money. It's not much, but it's the only power you have in this situation.

Oh god, I just time travelled to 2017.

He said just one, geez can't you read.

You already know that's what they're going to do. What to do next is your decision. Agreed. It should also be new instead of being fake-new.

I accept your apology.

Definitely not. Fortunately no insiders are needed because day after day, week after week, since the very beginning of the ASA fiasco a year ago, WC has continued to show the world how their culture works, and it's just the same as it ever was. Different doesn't necessarily mean better. A different method of deployment has nothing to do with a different culture, those are two entirely different conversations. If the method of deployment is better for the company and yet fails to create a better product then that's not an improvement in culture. Culture is about creating a higher quality of product and providing a better player/customer experience, which has pretty clearly not happened during the last year. Yes different, but so far not better (because again different does not necessarily mean better) and WC has given players no reason to expect that it's going to be better. The fact that their very first delivery of "content" with the new system was a bunch of garbage that no one ever asked for should be a huge red flag for anyone hoping that this will improve the quality of the game. That's not an anomaly, it's not an accident or oversight, it's a harbinger of things to come and it demonstrates that their focus on quantity over quality it just as bad today as it has ever been. That part is not new, this is something they've always done. Every map has had pre-deployment of some assets in preparation for the map release. The only rational expectation is that this map release will go as well (or as poorly, depending on your point of view) as all the previous map releases.

Except it's really not, which is the point. That's a marketing lie designed to let WC get away doing a bad job. If you can't figure out that describing ASA as early access is a lie then that's your intellectual failure, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you real cheap.

Of course it will be just as buggy, WildCard is still WildCard, they haven't changed their company culture in the last few months. This has always been how they have done business, and it's always going to be how they do business. If you think they're ever going to magically change, they're not, the company is owned and run by the same people with the same values they've always had. Any other answer is just foolish wishful thinking.

You'll need to answer the obvious questions before anyone can offer an informed opinion: 1) What operating system is he using on his computer? 2) What file system is he using on his computer? There will probably be more questions to follow, but those two need to be answered before anyone can offer you any useful information.

It's amusing how you keep using terms that you clearly don't understand.

You should have ended that sentence at "think", then you would have been right for a change.

Translation: You can't come up with any legit arguments, so you pretend to ignore that all your arguments have been complete failures. Hey, whatever helps you sleep.

Ahhh, so in addition to being a closet psychopath who thinks it's ok to run people over with cars or shoot them when you don't agree with them, you also deny the factual reality that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. Big surprise there, more science and facts that you don't understand.