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Joker

The Game Developers are Deaf and Mute

Atlas Dev's Suck  

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  1. 1. Atlas Dev's Suck

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So I've been a 5k + hour player in most of all the ARK genre games and honestly without a doubt this is the most deaf and mute studio I've ever seen.  I typically stay off forums as these days most posts are just troll but since there's time due to network outages with no explanation I figured fuck it why not make a post.

I love their games but their community involvement is absolute shit.  All the way back to the Early Ark days when we as testers in Beta were on a single Skype call, they've had problems being in touch with their community.

So FFS can you please take one minute to update your community when shit hits the fan on your networks / games.  How long does it take for an "EMPLOYEE" to type we are investigating the issue and then to get back to the community when there is updates.  We rarely have a clue what is going on with the game and most information is well after the fact.  I can't imagine how much more profitable your games would be if you took a minute to just engage the community that obviously loves your games but hate the way you treat them.  Wake up Wildcard / Grapeshot / Snail / whatever the hell you are calling yourselves this week.  Your community is trying to speak to you!

So feel free to vent your frustration here as well or throw your praises because it's highly doubtful the Dev's are listening so don't expect any type of response either way, but if it makes you feel better to rant or rave about the game, might as well do it because right now NA network is down...

Edited by Joker
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They probably have no idea the servers are down. As for being angry, to be honest any realistic person with experience in Wildcard games, be it Ark or Atlas should be deadened to this. They do it all the time and have zero sense of shame towards it. They are a company comprised of 99% Art related employees, and 1% coding/network employees. They have no idea how to make a game work in a cohesive and functional way. THey are simply one  out of the millions of indie companies with no idea of what they're doing that  inevitably stumbled onto a treasure through sheer blind  luck then proceeded to just try to milk as much money from the existing success as they could. 

Edited by Ellentro
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I'm pretty deadened to it but still doesn't stop the fact it pisses me off.  So many other studios are in touch with their community.  I'm only playing this garbage until Last Oasis comes out and being in the closed beta I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt they are by far the best game development team I've seen as far as community outreach and for the fact that they listen closely to their community and are in their discord constantly with players etc...

So when that game comes out trust me I'll buy any IP they release if it's in the survival genre, we need a good studio doing survival the right way and they can use their IP of their base game to build worlds much like this ARK DLC Rubish brand has done but the reason I think many play is because their really isn't much other options out there....so stay tuned and do some googling up on "Last Oasis" because it will be the one to beat early next year for Survival PvP gaming.

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It's not the lack of information. I grew used to that long ago. What gets me is the decision making. As I play 40 hours a week and have all but stopped leveling at 41 due to not playing the right way this time around.

I like this game. I think it could be a great one if they got a good leader with mmo experience in place and put more effort in to optimizing.

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1 minute ago, Gemini Five said:

It's not the lack of information. I grew used to that long ago. What gets me is the decision making. As I play 40 hours a week and have all but stopped leveling at 41 due to not playing the right way this time around.

I like this game. I think it could be a great one if they got a good leader with mmo experience in place and put more effort in to optimizing.

I mean, the game could be great if they did half a dozen fairly obvious things. The same was true in Ark. 

 

Yet here we are, like 5 years later where they have not only ceased to get better, but have actually regressed to become worse then when they first started. 

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yeah, before they think about more content, they need to optimize and bug fix. 
I would like to see more updates and not on twitter. These forums should be the place and links to it can be put on the social media places

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As a developer (not with this studio) myself, I'm pretty sure that if my PR team, my dev team, or even just my GMs saw a thread decrying the dev team for failure to engage, I wouldn't let it go 12 hours without some kind of response. Just saying...

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45 minutes ago, Dochollyhood said:

As a developer (not with this studio) myself, I'm pretty sure that if my PR team, my dev team, or even just my GMs saw a thread decrying the dev team for failure to engage, I wouldn't let it go 12 hours without some kind of response. Just saying...

they wont respond. ive made similar posts. theyre more likily to ban someone instead of engaging them. 

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For the sake of fairness, and there is nothing to be fair about in all honesty I'll point out how the players have helped to create this issue in the first place, and how it could be easily fixed. 
It should be noted that the Devs will be called out as well, so no, their actions will not go unnoticed...

 

First I'd like to repost a page from the Dev's site directly: 

Studio Wildcard was founded in 2014 with the mission of bringing AAA quality to ambitious indie productions designed for core gamers. With countless years of combined industry experience across multiple independent and studio-backed titles, Wildcard's core team has grown with offices in Kirkland, WA and Gainesville, FL including distributed team members across multiple continents.

We're still looking for talented people to fill the following roles (apply by e-mailing your resume and / or portfolio to jobs@studiowildcard.com directly

LOOKING FOR:

ALSO INTERESTED IN:

 

 

(PAGE WILL NOT GO BACK TO GREY SO I'LL CONTINUE POST HERE)

 

To answer the question about the studio directly, yes they are understaffed, and YES they are looking for employees. My question is if there are so many people pissed about the games and their performance, then why has no one stepped up to the plate. Granted, all players cannot fulfill these roles, nor do they have the experience and skills to do so, but surely there must be someone capable of helping the team out. There are countless fan made mods on the steam forums, and these projects are amazing, as most would agree. So why, and I ask why is no one interested in taking a shot at this. I'm sure that the team would be able to also deal with scheduling and employment time availability, so why doesn't anyone just ask?

To the bulk majority of you that have jobs or are not in the job market, then obviously this may not be possible for you, but out of the thousands of people that play this game, there should be a few responses. 

 

Now let's talk about the Devs. YES THEY DO NOT RESPOND A LOT! Just look at who they are hiring though, they are not interested in a lot of PR or Programming employees, that's just not part of their agenda. AND YES, it should be, but it's not. So we as a community have the option to boycott the product. After years and YEARS of disappointments from ARK, it was clear from the beginning what was going to happen with this game, we all knew, and yet we decided to buy it with the desire to try something new. AND XBOX PLAYERS, YOU MOST OF ALL KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GOING INTO, so don't put down some B.S. (I'm an xbox player FYI and I have been following the game since day 1, so I KNEW what I was going into). In the end, we all bought the game, we knew the risk, but we still bought it. 

So Yes, the Development team has issues, but they aren't worried a whole lot about these things, and we knew this from the start. So you all have the right to express your opinions and your frustration (I sure have), but know that you made a conscious decision to join this rag tag project 🙂 SO HAPPY SAILING! 

- Also have a great Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating and take some time to stop farming and enjoy some good food 

Edited by Doots2521
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Atlas need events whas theme, events different. Number of players started to fall again, let's go to a release year. Developers need to do something different, at least this holiday season.

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So I took the time to comb through the Announcements and General discussion forums to find all of the staff that are active on the forums and look at their accounts. Of the five that I found, all of them have viewed the forums in the last 10 days, but only three have been active. Dollie has been extremely active, but seems to be focused on damage control and support ticket elevation. All of the topics that were actually responded to were things with fixes/patches already in the works. Nothing about future developments or any real response to feedback about the direction of the game.

This all tells me that there is little focus on customer engagement, likely because as DOOTS2521 said, they are dreadfully understaffed. To me this says that they are over-committed, and it is taking every resource they have to put out the fires they're currently working on. Given that the game is in preview status, that's somewhat understandable, but there is a definite chasm that needs crossed before release. Too bad they are only hiring candidates with shipped titles and stacked resumes... otherwise I'd throw my hat in the ring. Guess modders and hobbyists who make games better (or in my case make better games) don't count as real developers because we didn't do it with a five million dollar bankroll behind us. Sucks that I have to finish my game (by my damn self while still working full time as a mechanical engineer) before any studio will take me seriously... but I can't get a staff because no one wants to work for free until I ship. Catch-22

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On 11/26/2019 at 6:58 PM, Joker said:

So I've been a 5k + hour player in most of all the ARK genre games and honestly without a doubt this is the most deaf and mute studio I've ever seen.  I typically stay off forums as these days most posts are just troll but since there's time due to network outages with no explanation I figured fuck it why not make a post.

I love their games but their community involvement is absolute shit.  All the way back to the Early Ark days when we as testers in Beta were on a single Skype call, they've had problems being in touch with their community.

So FFS can you please take one minute to update your community when shit hits the fan on your networks / games.  How long does it take for an "EMPLOYEE" to type we are investigating the issue and then to get back to the community when there is updates.  We rarely have a clue what is going on with the game and most information is well after the fact.  I can't imagine how much more profitable your games would be if you took a minute to just engage the community that obviously loves your games but hate the way you treat them.  Wake up Wildcard / Grapeshot / Snail / whatever the hell you are calling yourselves this week.  Your community is trying to speak to you!

So feel free to vent your frustration here as well or throw your praises because it's highly doubtful the Dev's are listening so don't expect any type of response either way, but if it makes you feel better to rant or rave about the game, might as well do it because right now NA network is down...

my honest suggestion is to simply look for something else to play, almost everything has been said already in several posts in the last 4 months, this was a improvised cash grab from the beginning, we were not buying a game we were crowd founding, there was not a game to be bought, there was a half assed idea for a game (kinda like anthem but worse), they only have 1 year before release and the very core features of the game are disliked by most of the community, the current state of the game is the same as when you have a school project to do but you slack until the night before to do it, you will give it to the teacher tomorrow but you can only pray for a miracle.

if you like survivals try 7 days to die

if you like colony micro/macro managing try oxygen not included

if you like MMOs try black desert online (wich btw just got its ocean expansion part 1 released a month ago)

the only thing left is to wish to you luck and to the game a miracle.

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On 11/28/2019 at 4:12 AM, Doots2521 said:

My question is if there are so many people pissed about the games and their performance, then why has no one stepped up to the plate. Granted, all players cannot fulfill these roles, nor do they have the experience and skills to do so, but surely there must be someone capable of helping the team out. There are countless fan made mods on the steam forums, and these projects are amazing, as most would agree. So why, and I ask why is no one interested in taking a shot at this. I'm sure that the team would be able to also deal with scheduling and employment time availability, so why doesn't anyone just ask?

To the bulk majority of you that have jobs or are not in the job market, then obviously this may not be possible for you, but out of the thousands of people that play this game, there should be a few responses. 

Now let's talk about the Devs. YES THEY DO NOT RESPOND A LOT! Just look at who they are hiring though, they are not interested in a lot of PR or Programming employees, that's just not part of their agenda. AND YES, it should be, but it's not. So we as a community have the option to boycott the product. After years and YEARS of disappointments from ARK, it was clear from the beginning what was going to happen with this game, we all knew, and yet we decided to buy it with the desire to try something new. AND XBOX PLAYERS, YOU MOST OF ALL KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GOING INTO, so don't put down some B.S. (I'm an xbox player FYI and I have been following the game since day 1, so I KNEW what I was going into). In the end, we all bought the game, we knew the risk, but we still bought it. 

So Yes, the Development team has issues, but they aren't worried a whole lot about these things, and we knew this from the start. So you all have the right to express your opinions and your frustration (I sure have), but know that you made a conscious decision to join this rag tag project 🙂 SO HAPPY SAILING! 

- Also have a great Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating and take some time to stop farming and enjoy some good food 

" with the mission of bringing AAA quality to ambitious indie productions " OMG i am dying 😂

i couldnt possibly join a crew with so little gaming experience, their problems are not only code related rather they dont understand what the players want to the point where they literally chased away undecided players by implementing the decay system and the offline raiding, most of the players were tolerant to the technical difficulties but what killed their will to play was the incoherent gameplay desing, so if someone with thousand of played hrs in different gaming genres like myself were to join the team i would probably feel very frustrated from the very first day if the feedback i deliver was to be ignored, ignored as it has been the voice of the community trough this whole mess.

still there are some game mechanics that show promise, the naval combat itself is not bad, the way damage is displayed looks nice and fun, the accuracy with wich you can fire the cannons is great, the ability to customize the ship adds a lot to the gameplay experience, but if they are unable to even grasp what they are doing properly and what they are doing wrong, it wont matter how many people they hire.

the XBOX players complaining got exactly what they deserved, the state of the game was very well known by the time it was released to XBOX, if they didnt even bother checking review before buying they digged their own grave.

have a great time yourself with your family and beloved ones 🙂

Edited by The D Legacy

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5 hours ago, The D Legacy said:

i couldnt possibly join a crew with so little gaming experience

Some developers prefer to be a big fish in a little pond. With all the potential promise of Atlas, with some chops, you could really make a difference there that you could be proud of, whereas even amazing lifetime developers can't budge the wheel in a huge shop like Ubisoft or Bioware.

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18 hours ago, Sleepinator2000 said:

Some developers prefer to be a big fish in a little pond. With all the potential promise of Atlas, with some chops, you could really make a difference there that you could be proud of, whereas even amazing lifetime developers can't budge the wheel in a huge shop like Ubisoft or Bioware.

The problem here is that there aren't that many of those types of people out there. And they probably aren't offering a competitive enough salary to draw people away from the "big ponds". They need to start loosening the criteria and focusing on hard working, skilled employees rather than credentialed ones. Either way, the goal is to get it done right... but the difference is how long it takes. Waiting for that 5%er candidate is costing the player community. Hiring a hobbyist (or 20) who is just as good (if not better) but has never shipped a game could save the game from fizzling out due to lack of response to feedback.

To put it simply, they need to stop pretending they need the best candidates for the job... because the best candidates aren't applying to work for them, and start accepting candidates who can improve their product. No one drives their 2002 focus into a Ford dealership and says, "I'm not leaving here without a GT500." No, they buy a Fusion and call it a win.

Edited by Dochollyhood

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6 hours ago, Dochollyhood said:

To put it simply, they need to stop pretending they need the best candidates for the job... because the best candidates aren't applying to work for them, and start accepting candidates who can improve their product. 

Sounds like you have a dog in this fight. Have you considered applying despite the requisites? You sound passionate. If that comes across in a cover letter, you probably have a shot, even if you think you don't.

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If you say so, but it also sounds like you've got nothing to lose in trying.

If everyone adhered to required prerequisites, we'd still be banging two rocks together.

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On 11/26/2019 at 12:58 PM, Joker said:

honestly without a doubt this is the most deaf and mute studio I've ever seen.

I find this statement a tad presumptuous.  At this point they are not deaf and mute ...... they are ABSENT.  I have heard on several occasions that many are working on Ark as opposed to Atlas.  For all we know the new lead developer they brought in said "F*ck this" after figuring out what he got himself into.  I have a feeling the Xbox release was not the great boon to business that they were hoping for.  More like a last stand.  Hell, I saw the game on Steam not too long ago for $4.74 during a sale.  Lol ..... less than 5 bucks.  smh     

 

Forums .... dead with no signs of dev life, Discord ...... dead with no signs of Dev life, Twitter .... dead with no signs of Dev life and Reddit ..... dead with no signs of Dev life.  Completely and totally ABSENT is what they are.

 

As much as I truly dislike pessimism, my faith in these guys is quite limited at best.  Anyone who has played Atlas can see the potential.  I just feel like that is where it will stay.  The reputation of the game and the team behind it is toast and they don't seem to be trying to rectify the situation.   

 

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The sad thing is there are so many really good modders out there that could really add to the official game and probably would quite willingly. I love atlas and I don't want to see it fail.

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10 hours ago, Whitehawk said:

The sad thing is there are so many really good modders out there that could really add to the official game and probably would quite willingly. I love atlas and I don't want to see it fail.

lol good morning. it already failed

 

you cant put up such a big trailer and then deliver hot garbage.

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I spent a good portion of yesterday in the discord and as it turns out, they hinted at this in the last Captain’s Log. But when you say things like “batten down the hatches” and “hunker down”... your customers don’t take that to mean “fall off the grid”. Despite saying they would be available for crucial fixes and emergency assistance, they never said outright that they would be this inaccessible. And furthermore... NO ONE should ever be this inaccessible. There should be someone who does absolutely nothing but manage these forums, the social media, and other channels of communication.

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I feel sorry for the Xbox players.

When we (PC players) started this game we had weekly captains logs, weekly screenshot art competitions with cash prizes, and a good amount of customer engagement.

When the poor Xbox players started they got one captains log basicly saying "we're not talking to anyone anymore, bye."

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We got Professor Oak'd. "Take this Pokemon and get the hell out of my lab," then becomes an unresponsive NPC for the rest of the game.

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