The Danger Zone

[Realist 504]

37 minutes ago, Nari said:

I'll level with you. I read between the lines here and I see are 3 things.

1: Pop is particularly low today - Excuse. 2: You don't like claims. Period. - Opportunity. 3: You're bored. - Motive.  People looking into buying the game on the other hand won't see this. They'll see yet another thread about how "deeply concerned" someone is about the population. Not aware of any of the aforementioned improvements or upward trends. Which is why I took a moment to point them out. I would have left it at that but you didn't.

That isn’t the only time you acted like that and I am not the only person I have seen you act like that to. There is no reason for it.

and you are wrong because I am deeply concerned whether you think I am or not. What happens here and know will affect console so what I am not concerned about is if people dislike that I don’t own the game yet. It’s time to deal with it. 

[Anne Bonney 2]

On 7/17/2019 at 1:16 PM, Nari said:

How about not making the same "Population is X = Game is Dead/Dying" thread over and over and over... believe it or not it would actually help. I'm serious. That's my suggestion.

Reviews are on the rise. New sales are too. WPE is sure to bring in some old and new (if all you care about it population) and who knows what's slated for MU4 or beyond. There's still 17months of EA. The devs themselves have made it clear they do not care about the concurrent numbers at this point in development. Your username is Realist ffs. Its ironic really.

Well said Nari. I will say this. THIS is an EARLY ACCESS game! They are experimenting, refining, adding, subtracting, balancing. People that buy into an EA game surely by now must be aware of what they are paying for... there are disclaimers all over the place. For someone to complain, or moan, or lament about low population numbers killing a game during EA is absolutely a result of not realizing what is going on, or an attention getter.

Please Realist, realize what is really going on. If you already realize what is going on, then you must be the latter. I mean no disrespect at all... I do agree that negative posts about numbers frighten potential customers that may want to try the game, away.

Edit: Oh, and I am having a BLAST with my friends playing this game. Bugs, yup. But they fix them fast and I am having fun.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Anne Bonney

[sgzeroone 63]

Developers that launch their early alpha state game on Steam in early access get what they deserve.  If you going to allow people to review you game you might want to consider have a bit more developed before you launch in onto steam.

Since the devs have stated that their focus in on pvp, they are pretty much doomed.  Besides the horrible unbalanced combat systems, broken meta's and poor implemented and thought out additions to the game.  It's laggy as all hell cause their netcode is junk.  It seems to be a hot mess more than Early Access.

I wanted to like this game, but its just in complete disarray and after watching a couple dev streams these guys seem about incompetent at best.

I hope the devs get their act together and get their heads removed from their rectums and maybe fix this game.

I have since this post quit playing and uninstalled it. 

Good luck to those who stay, I wish you the best.

[Whitehawk 382]

I personally don't like the trend towards pvp,because in my experience people will always get bored when there is nothing new left to fight or do.However, Atlas has shown a big commitment and support to it's pve community, even when this was never it's first intention.As for player numbers they will always go up and down in mmo's especially ea.Some people just want it cheap then wait for the bugs to go,some people just want different game options,some people would get bored in a party at the playboy mansion tbh.I play everyday,I can't say that about any other game at all.I also visit the forums everyday,how many games have a dedicated forum as good as this one?they've given us single player,which is damn excellent,and now they've given us multi nds options too.What more do people want?tameable dancing reindeer?

[Whitehawk 382]

Oh yeh,I forgot to add that the graphics in this game can be absolutely stunning at times too,especially the sunsets,and that on low mem mode too.

[wandelaar 44]

@REALIST At the very least it is odd to see so much opining being done by someone who does not play the game, has never played the game and has no intention of ever playing the game. Combine this with the actual content of all of your message and we get an influencer who on the surface is calm, reasonable, respectfull, considerate ... until you read between the lines.
You are seemingly upfront about not being involved, yet you keep involving yourself. Why is that?

Edited July 18, 2019 by wandelaar

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

2 hours ago, wandelaar said:

@REALIST At the very least it is odd to see so much opining being done by someone who does not play the game, has never played the game and has no intention of ever playing the game. Combine this with the actual content of all of your message and we get an influencer who on the surface is calm, reasonable, respectfull, considerate ... until you read between the lines.
You are seemingly upfront about not being involved, yet you keep involving yourself. Why is that?

Realist intends to play at console release. He is not a pc gamer. So while it's true he does not and never has played the game, based on his own statements it's not true he has no intention of doing so. I will say that in the early days just after launch his posts exclusively attacked GrapeCard™ based on their track record with Ark. Over time his position has changed considerably. Make of that what you will.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

3 hours ago, sgzeroone said:

Developers that launch their early alpha state game on Steam in early access get what they deserve.  If you going to allow people to review you game you might want to consider have a bit more developed before you launch in onto steam.

There is a lot of truth to this. The gaming industry has in the past few years seems to have come to the collective conclusion that it can have it's cake and eat it too by substituting Early Access, which people pay for, for the previous traditional system of open or closed beta, utilizing a combination of paid testers and volunteer players in a controlled environment. The wonders of turning a cost center into a profit center seemed to good to be true, but this post goes to the heart of the other side of the coin.

If you are going to charge people for a product, their expectations are going to be higher than if you just let them play your in development game for free and give feedback.  Games are largely a prisoner of their reputations, and in an age where player reviews, youtube reviews, and steam reviews have all become significant parts of that reputation, the developer that releases an early alpha stage game to EA and charges money for it is playing with fire to make a quick buck. 

If Atlas ultimately fails or does poorly, surely people will look back and say that one of the main reasons was the negative reputation it developed because of it's launch and first few months of chaos. If that turns out to be the case GrapeCard will end up looking penny wise and pound foolish for not having waited until later in development to release. The lesson on display to gamers atm is NOT ALL EARLY ACCESS GAMES ARE CREATED EQUAL.

If you doubt this, go have a look at Satisfactory. It's EA, but you'd just about never know it. Feels like a finished game. And it's only half as old as Atlas.

[seruum 56]

I just think the vastness of the game puts alot of people off. The fact you need to do so many discoveries to get a higher level. The fact you need to goto multiple places to make your end game gear. People these days have an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. This game can be a casual player game if people want it to be. Casual players want to achieve what end game companies do, this can be done with significantly higher hours put into the game. There is a reason why most games make last seasons tier gear available for heroic/expert dungeon runners in other games. I am in what i would consider a medium company (8 active members) and we have achieved all endgame content with the exception of kraken 2.0. Me and the wife did all the powerstones together (yep 2 people all 18) twice once with mains and did first 9 again with alts to summon kraken 1.0 (yea there needs to be an option to summon the kraken you want) our company did kraken 1.0 with a galleon and a brig (5 people in total 3 on brig 2 on galleon) ice cave only the missus and i can do at the moment and we teamed up with people via the forums. My point is people don't like a challenge. People don't like investing hours of travel and farming time into making that awesome mythical gun the found. People don't want to relly on an animal that in RL would woop your ass to get high end maps done. And then there are the people like me and a few others playing who wouldn't have it any other way.

[seruum 56]

7 hours ago, boomervoncannon said:

There is a lot of truth to this. The gaming industry has in the past few years seems to have come to the collective conclusion that it can have it's cake and eat it too by substituting Early Access, which people pay for, for the previous traditional system of open or closed beta, utilizing a combination of paid testers and volunteer players in a controlled environment. The wonders of turning a cost center into a profit center seemed to good to be true, but this post goes to the heart of the other side of the coin.

If you are going to charge people for a product, their expectations are going to be higher than if you just let them play your in development game for free and give feedback.  Games are largely a prisoner of their reputations, and in an age where player reviews, youtube reviews, and steam reviews have all become significant parts of that reputation, the developer that releases an early alpha stage game to EA and charges money for it is playing with fire to make a quick buck. 

If Atlas ultimately fails or does poorly, surely people will look back and say that one of the main reasons was the negative reputation it developed because of it's launch and first few months of chaos. If that turns out to be the case GrapeCard will end up looking penny wise and pound foolish for not having waited until later in development to release. The lesson on display to gamers atm is NOT ALL EARLY ACCESS GAMES ARE CREATED EQUAL.

If you doubt this, go have a look at Satisfactory. It's EA, but you'd just about never know it. Feels like a finished game. And it's only half as old as Atlas.

Boomer you always have some great points in the forums. Always a good read.

[Slash78 95]

26 minutes ago, seruum said:

I just think the vastness of the game puts alot of people off. The fact you need to do so many discoveries to get a higher level. The fact you need to goto multiple places to make your end game gear. People these days have an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. This game can be a casual player game if people want it to be. Casual players want to achieve what end game companies do, this can be done with significantly higher hours put into the game. There is a reason why most games make last seasons tier gear available for heroic/expert dungeon runners in other games. I am in what i would consider a medium company (8 active members) and we have achieved all endgame content with the exception of kraken 2.0. Me and the wife did all the powerstones together (yep 2 people all 18) twice once with mains and did first 9 again with alts to summon kraken 1.0 (yea there needs to be an option to summon the kraken you want) our company did kraken 1.0 with a galleon and a brig (5 people in total 3 on brig 2 on galleon) ice cave only the missus and i can do at the moment and we teamed up with people via the forums. My point is people don't like a challenge. People don't like investing hours of travel and farming time into making that awesome mythical gun the found. People don't want to relly on an animal that in RL would woop your ass to get high end maps done. And then there are the people like me and a few others playing who wouldn't have it any other way.

Now that you're done patting yourself on the back, a major issue you can do all that, then log in the next time it's all gone.  Ships sunk, holes in your walls, resources gone, tames dead.  37 hours of gameplay after coming back and I have to force myself to even log in.  I don't want to build another ship.  I patched the holes in my walls and then logged off.  Don't know when the next time I'm going to log in.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe never.

[cidran 32]

it needs more prefab content, prefabricrated ships, buildins, defenses, etc. 

That will also allow for "prefab" NPC settlements we can explore or get things from.

[Anne Bonney 2]

9 hours ago, Slash78 said:

Now that you're done patting yourself on the back, a major issue you can do all that, then log in the next time it's all gone.  Ships sunk, holes in your walls, resources gone, tames dead.  37 hours of gameplay after coming back and I have to force myself to even log in.  I don't want to build another ship.  I patched the holes in my walls and then logged off.  Don't know when the next time I'm going to log in.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe never.

Wow Slash! I am so sorry that your PVE experience went like that! Mine has been more along the lines of Seruum's. I love the sailing, I have some animals and a couple of bases, and my bases have never been ransacked, ships sunk, resources gone, or tames dead. Maybe you should rethink how you want to continue in this game, if that is your choice. I know I am having a great time. I look forward the the 17 more months of improvements before the true release of this EARLY ACCESS game.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Anne Bonney

[Whitehawk 382]

The only thing apart from losing my ships which has also made me not want to bother making anymore,is the levelling.apart from skill points I find it daft that no matter what level I am and how much health etc I've got I can still sometimes be wiped by a level 8 creature with surprising ease.it doesn't happen every time but when it does I still find it a bit wrong.But now with single player I can adjust that little problem when I want to,at least that's something. 

[sgzeroone 63]

12 hours ago, seruum said:

I just think the vastness of the game puts alot of people off. The fact you need to do so many discoveries to get a higher level. The fact you need to goto multiple places to make your end game gear. People these days have an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. This game can be a casual player game if people want it to be. Casual players want to achieve what end game companies do, this can be done with significantly higher hours put into the game. There is a reason why most games make last seasons tier gear available for heroic/expert dungeon runners in other games. I am in what i would consider a medium company (8 active members) and we have achieved all endgame content with the exception of kraken 2.0. Me and the wife did all the powerstones together (yep 2 people all 18) twice once with mains and did first 9 again with alts to summon kraken 1.0 (yea there needs to be an option to summon the kraken you want) our company did kraken 1.0 with a galleon and a brig (5 people in total 3 on brig 2 on galleon) ice cave only the missus and i can do at the moment and we teamed up with people via the forums. My point is people don't like a challenge. People don't like investing hours of travel and farming time into making that awesome mythical gun the found. People don't want to relly on an animal that in RL would woop your ass to get high end maps done. And then there are the people like me and a few others playing who wouldn't have it any other way.

The exploration to gain points to level is a mechanic in this game that just doesn't work.  When your a casual player the time required to gather materials and the sail around to level up to gain more abilities is just poorly designed.  The average casual player will never get anywhere in this game level wise.  The game almost requires you to log in everyday and play hardcord for the most part.  That does not appeal to a large amount of casual non hardcore players.  I don't think its necessarily that the don't want to be challenged.  Honestly the game has already been nerfed to the point that its not even hard anymore.  The problem is it's just not fun.....

In the end...this game does a few things right, but most of it is wrong. 

It needs to go back into pre-alpha closed and they really need to sit down and do a roadmap.  I don't think these guys have a real plan, it's more like a bunch of moders with a few ideas for adding cool stuff to the game and nobody looking at the overall direction of the game.

Edited July 19, 2019 by sgzeroone

[Stridle_Warwitch 1]

 

 

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 Advanced issues found

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On 7/18/2019 at 12:30 PM, Nari said:

I'll level with you. I read between the lines here and I see are 3 things.

1: Pop is particularly low today - Excuse. 2: You don't like claims. Period. - Opportunity. 3: You're bored. - Motive.  People looking into buying the game on the other hand won't see this. They'll see yet another thread about how "deeply concerned" someone is about the population. Not aware of any of the aforementioned improvements or upward trends. Which is why I took a moment to point them out. I would have left it at that but you didn't.

I love the detailed descriptions of complaints about the game, every game has issues and Lulls - its part of the player base swapping and trying out new things. Dedicated were nice for small trib players from ark but alas atlas was meant to be a full-on fluid environment full of possibilities and exploration at every turn. Yes every game gets boring at some point but people need to just stop the constant bitching and give some solid feedback to the nest. The game is in development, and I want to see this game be very successful. There is million games around if  a game is not for you dont force your idea of what is going to make it great upon others. 

One of the biggest issues i have with games that have pve/PvE servers is generally the pvp gets a nerf because of the pve/s  dont like something and constantly cry and complain until it gets removed from the game or just becomes useless.  There is tiles out on pvp that are just sitting with no one using them with sleepers that have long since quit the game and would take a nuke to just destroy the unattended castle. Some days I just want to sit with the animals and run out a new line of mutations others I like to hit the high sea- But if you dont own the game and dont want to try to help please stop pushing others away from an experience they may like. 

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

@Stridle_Warwitch Your avatar is creepy and unnerving. Can you put a blanket over it at night so I can sleep?

[Jack Shandy 242]

On 7/19/2019 at 7:04 PM, sgzeroone said:

The exploration to gain points to level is a mechanic in this game that just doesn't work.  When your a casual player the time required to gather materials and the sail around to level up to gain more abilities is just poorly designed.  The average casual player will never get anywhere in this game level wise.  The game almost requires you to log in everyday and play hardcord for the most part.  That does not appeal to a large amount of casual non hardcore players.  I don't think its necessarily that the don't want to be challenged.  Honestly the game has already been nerfed to the point that its not even hard anymore.  The problem is it's just not fun.....

In the end...this game does a few things right, but most of it is wrong. 

It needs to go back into pre-alpha closed and they really need to sit down and do a roadmap.  I don't think these guys have a real plan, it's more like a bunch of moders with a few ideas for adding cool stuff to the game and nobody looking at the overall direction of the game.

This is not strictly true.

If you have a fast schooner, fully kitted with all crafting stations. A couple of tames, bear and horse for example. You can explore the world collecting DP's, leaving the boat out there when you need to log off.

This way if you have only an hour or so to play you can teleport to this exploration ship, discover a grid or two and log off. It's my favourite thing to do when i have little time.

of coarse if you play PVP that your own fault  

[sgzeroone 63]

On 7/21/2019 at 4:20 AM, Jack Shandy said:

This is not strictly true.

If you have a fast schooner, fully kitted with all crafting stations. A couple of tames, bear and horse for example. You can explore the world collecting DP's, leaving the boat out there when you need to log off.

This way if you have only an hour or so to play you can teleport to this exploration ship, discover a grid or two and log off. It's my favourite thing to do when i have little time.

of coarse if you play PVP that your own fault  

I understand the concept of the exploration schooner.  But outfitted as you state really limits things.  For one, you not going to be fighting any SOTD.  Second, if you come across any really good or rare resources that you want you have no way of really transporting them off the island.   So your just sailing around landing on islands and running around.  Which is interesting for about 30 mins then it turns into the most boring grind.  Sail here....jump off then back on....sail to next island...repeat.   And it takes a ridiculous amount of islands explored to even bump your level cap up even one level.  So for the time spent sailing and running around islands the rewards is pretty bad.  IMHO

I'm glad you enjoy it as much as your do, but for allot of us its simply not that engaging and fun. 

[Sulfurblade 194]

On 7/16/2019 at 9:38 PM, Realist said:

True, people were waiting for the wipe to come back and we saw almost 3k people come back which was a good thing.

They Claimed an Update that was designed for SMALL GROUPS and SOLO PLAYERS.  

Then Immediately shut down the server with all the mega guilds and then changed the server they designed for SMALL GROUPS to be better for the Mega's!!!

Bait and Switch!!! They Lied.....

[Realist 504]

15 minutes ago, Sulfurblade said:

They Claimed an Update that was designed for SMALL GROUPS and SOLO PLAYERS.  

Then Immediately shut down the server with all the mega guilds and then changed the server they designed for SMALL GROUPS to be better for the Mega's!!!

Bait and Switch!!! They Lied.....

You are completely right. I didn’t mean it to sound like they made a good decision.

i was only pointing out that the only time we have seen an increase in numbers with atlas or ark for that matter is when there is a wipe or new fresh servers that come out like a new map.

there is no update they can do that will generate numbers. Only wipes or new servers.

ark is far more successful, but if you look at their timeline for the full 3 years almost any increase has dealt with either a new map or an expansion. In arks case certain Dino’s did raise pop, but for the most part is is always new servers rather it is in the form of a wipe/new map/ expansion.

atlas will need to make a decision pretty quickly because adding a couple pieces of content will never do the trick

[Slash78 95]

I was shocked to see that The Isle (an Ark knock-off) has more active players than Atlas.  

 

Yes, Atlas is in trouble.  Even with Single player out people aren't coming back.

[Realist 504]

19 minutes ago, Slash78 said:

I was shocked to see that The Isle (an Ark knock-off) has more active players than Atlas.  

 

Yes, Atlas is in trouble.  Even with Single player out people aren't coming back.

Not just that but always remember that whatever the number of steam charts is that there is always at least 35% on unofficial.

bow that there is non dedicated we can only assume that that 35% is close to a constant 40%. The reason I say this is because if you look at the low point of every day the unofficial numbers actually get close to 50%

no matter what you do, always look at the steam charts and know that 50% is not on official. That will give you a better aspect of things

[Slash78 95]

16 minutes ago, Realist said:

Not just that but always remember that whatever the number of steam charts is that there is always at least 35% on unofficial.

bow that there is non dedicated we can only assume that that 35% is close to a constant 40%. The reason I say this is because if you look at the low point of every day the unofficial numbers actually get close to 50%

no matter what you do, always look at the steam charts and know that 50% is not on official. That will give you a better aspect of things

Huh?  Steam chart doesn't just have those on official servers, it's everyone logged in through Steam.  Trying to figure out the point you're trying to make.

Right now about 61% of players are on official servers.