New Ark DLC is a trick!!

[zebrah]

People on reddit are already calling it, this new DLC which is a lazy made dlc is really being made to break mods and unofficial servers to force more players off of ARK SE and force you to buy ARK SA. It even says they will bring official servers back JUST FOR THIS DLC for a limited time.

[Liralen]

That trick won't work on me. I'll never buy ASA.

I stopped playing Ark for about a year after ASA was announced (because of fears of devs breaking the game in a misguided attempt to generate sales for ASA) and only returned when I ran out of new games that interest me, and found that ASE had not been broken as I had believed it would be. In fact, it's more stable now that the devs aren't dinking with it.

So I'm now no worse off than I was when ASA was announced. It'll just be time to finally move on.

[SAS]

Backup your game. Trick steam into not updating it ever again. Something in the line of how Skyrim players do.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by zebrah:

People on reddit are already calling it, this new DLC which is a lazy made dlc is really being made to break mods and unofficial servers to force more players off of ARK SE and force you to buy ARK SA. It even says they will bring official servers back JUST FOR THIS DLC for a limited time.

We already have one of these threads. Go away. I'll judge it when it comes out.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by SAS:

Backup your game. Trick steam into not updating it ever again. Something in the line of how Skyrim players do.

Yeah, that's a huge pet peeve of mine with Steam - that it forces upgrades on us. I first recognized that problem while playing Ark on a dedicated server operated by a friend. I had no choice but to upgrade, knowing full well that my friend was not available to upgrade the server. He resolved that by providing me with remote access to his servers. I had transferred the server files to him because he had better equipment to run them on.

The Secret World is probably the most egregious case. Players who bought the game from Steam were forced to upgrade to Secret World Legends, whereas folks like me who bought the boxed game can still play either version. Legends was an attempt to dumb the game down. As told in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sewl0u66lQ

TSW was dying anyway. But while playing SWL on Steam, several players have wished they could still play TSW, but Steam makes it impossible (see at about the 16 minute mark). While I can still play TSW, there's hardly anyone there either, so it's a moot point.

Whatever, this is a good reminder for me to never buy a Steam game if I can buy it from another source.

[william_es]

Cats are a trick! Don't pet them.

They have fluffy fur just to trick you into petting them! Stay strong and don't give in to the temptation.

[Kikka21]

While I would love a purely aqautic map, this is being made by Snail USA, NOT Wildcard, I don't trust snail to make a good map. I'll be keeping auto updates off, I can see how Snail would be doing this to sabotage ASE, though they could just be desperate for cash, too.

[Liralen]

Thinking about this some more, all Snail needs to do make a new map is hire some of people who made some of the best free maps, but charge for them instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45HebPj6NMs

[Mathius]

Originally posted by Liralen:

Thinking about this some more, all Snail needs to do make a new map is hire some of people who made some of the best free maps, but charge for them instead.

That may be harder than you think.

The Center was created by EvilMrFrank who WC already hired. He was the lead on Aberration, according to rumor.

The Ragnarok map was a team of people. Rumor has it WC hired them as well.

Valguero had some controversy over WC removing griffins and a lot of the Aberration creatures. I don't know if this created bad vibes or not, but I do know that the mod author insisted he could be allowed to add these back in mod form.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1786522940

The creator of Crystal Isles was upset that WC removed so many of her original creatures (you can add a lot of these back with the Crystal Isles Dino Additions)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2135314513

Allegedly she wanted to continue finishing the map, but after WC made it official it increased the amount of bug complaints and bad feedback she was getting, so she quit modding for a while from what I've heard.

I don't know much of anything about Lost Island except they blatantly copied the map from The Elder Scrolls.

I do know that the guy/gal who made Fjordur announced that the map was hardly finished when it was put in WC's showcase (I know because they replied to me directly), and then less than a year later they made it an official map.

He continued to develop the map under the name FJell:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1838617463

WC has a history of putting out incomplete, buggy, stuff and then moving on to the new shiny money maker. It's not just Snail.

I don't think any of the unofficial maps were ever finished before WC snagged them to get more players.

The Center and Ragnarok famously were made official while still under development.

Most of the rest of them had stuff removed.

[Shadow Moses OG]

Snail Games CEO Shi Hai's involvement in the electric vehicle company IndiEV, which was founded by him, has faced challenges and allegations of financial mismanagement and poor treatment of employees, potentially contributing to the company's struggles.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by Shadow Moses OG:

Snail Games CEO Shi Hai's involvement in the electric vehicle company IndiEV, which was founded by him, has faced challenges and allegations of financial mismanagement and poor treatment of employees, potentially contributing to the company's struggles.

Which is all speculation based on a video you heard of or watched by Nooblets.

None of which accounts for the fact that Snail wouldn't even own WC, if WC wasn't shady in the first place.

Jeremy Stieglitz is the reason WC is the way it is right now.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by Mathius:

Originally posted by Liralen:

Thinking about this some more, all Snail needs to do make a new map is hire some of people who made some of the best free maps, but charge for them instead.

That may be harder than you think. <snip>

What I think is that thanks to the Ark Dev Kit, there are a lot of people who have ASE map making expertise and therefore Snail does not necessarily need Wildcard's help to release a new ASE map.

Will I buy it? Probably not. I've never liked underwater games, which is why I never bought Subnautica.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by Liralen:

What I think is that thanks to the Ark Dev Kit, there are a lot of people who have ASE map making expertise and therefore Snail does not necessarily need Wildcard's help to release a new ASE map.

I mean they shouldn't need experienced modders either. They've got actual devs. I have no idea how good they are, but we have no reason to think they're any less competent than WC just because they work for Snail.

Dark and Light, for example, might have been built on an old version of Ark (allegedly) but the map is unique and the parts of it I made it through were well done.

I remember getting into this head space with a developer..... I want to say it was the Dima's memory quest in Fallout 4. I think I was thinking that Bethesda's stuff was always so buggy, and here I am about to play a mini-game completely different from the main game. There's no way this doesn't bug out.

But the experience went flawlessly and I thought well... yeah.. they are professionals despite their rep and my experience. Having said that, Dima's memories was only neat that one time. Repeated playthroughs I always skip it.

I own subnautica, but haven't played it.

I generally don't like the water in Ark because it takes so long to get back to your base, and so long to get back to your body if you die.

Also, every water creature is aggressive and every large water creature is a "bullet sponge."