Just witnessed an entire server that had the whole map to themselves get wiped (They were a very friendly bunch of asians, I assume, because they wrote in "boxbox". But some were european. I knew a few of them since the winter event). 8months of build just went down in a matter of 20mins for each "base/teleport" location they built in. Caves took mere seconds, it's a joke.
It drove all of them to the point of anger and madness to weaponize and superspread COVID-19 to as many people as they can, like the swamp fever (one of them said lol), some of their friends/relatives have already died from what I heard so I suppose they are acting in an irrational form of "nothing more to lose, and don't give a flying F".
I don't blame them and feel kinda bad, but the game is designed in this way. Don't play if you cannot handle this gravity of loss. Everyone gets the same during raids regardless of what caliber they are, we all get wiped because it's only a matter of time and you lose all that you bring to the table. There are lots of ways to wipe bases quickly: cluster grenades, plat saddles, or just OP dinos etc. Like these vids as example...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDe-oe3LTo
Looks like they got nothing to play in ARK during quarantine, I guess the best thing to do is really go out there and take some fresh air. Gaming can be understandably stressful and infuriating, so if you are new to PvP Official just be aware of the circumstances involved, play responsibly and don't let things get to your head, specially in this period of time. If your base is found... It's likely a relentless '24hr+' no sleep battle to keep your base alive. If offline raid, then say goodbye to all your work. Just expect these things.
They were really kind people and even helped me out with starter kits and resources or just offered help if I ever get raided...
I hope better things are ahead and waiting for them in life for being such cool friends to play with. Here I decided to share their untold war-story to immortalize the goodness within them, before slowly finding themselves fall down a dark path. I fear a lot of similar events are bound to happen so use this as a lesson to not tilt so hard and just go chill.
This is peak gaming on PvP Official servers for you.
It's why, at the same time, I may seem like I contradict myself because don't believe in the saying: "It's just a game bro, who cares, forget about it." (But one is careless, and the other is chill).
Because even though virtual, we are still interconnected in many other ways and still share emotional bonds and effects such as empathy, hatred, love, friendship, betrayal, etc.
It is still a real living/feeding/breathing human being (with their own life influence upon them) on the other end of the internet which many seem to forget or deliberately put aside.
This incident awakened a deep sense of Humanitarianism within me to do something about it, whether ingame or real life but this game clearly doesn't revolve around such things, it is us who has to play around the "metas" of ARK even though it is terrible, unbalanced, unfair, anger-inducing, or whatever.
Maybe it is time; to give up on trying to make a difference or impact. Instead, just let things flow... Allow destruction to run its course to pave way for change to happen. Besides, one learns a whole lot more from failure than from success. There is always something to take from a downfall, if one hasn't forgotten to look.
Anyone else got such "Stories of ARK" to tell from your experience?