An Open Letter to Instinct Games Developers

[Basil Serpent 1]

Dear Instinct Games Developers and any other readers that happen upon my post.

My name is Basil, I'm an avid fan of history, pre history, and pretty much a lot of other events that happened in the past. I'm also someone who spends an inordinate amount of time behind his computer because videogames offer me an escape from the stress I deal with daily, in short: I'm a gamer through and through. I haven't bought this game, nor did I know about it until two days ago, but I've learned about it in that short amount of time.

About three years ago I purchased ARK: Survival Evolved when it was in early access, and enjoyed it at the time, but soon after the issues began to grate on me, they began to weigh down the experience to torture rather than enjoyment. 
I love prehistory, dinosaurs are my thing, and your game provided a fix, but it became unbearable due to your decisions in development. No optimization, unbalanced creatures, a difficulty curve steeper than the White Cliffs of Dover, and the creatures that were chosen to be added into the game (Not to mention their rather lackluster visual design) and all of these things were left unattended to. 
The straw that broke the camel's back was, in the end, the DLC before release, that was the moment I became appaled with your studio and your business practices, and it saddens me every time that a developer walks straight into this pitfall.

Now you may ask: "Why did you go on that tangent about ARK?" to which I will answer that - thanks to ARK - I've got experience with the game you have released in the past, and it is ultimately relevant to ATLAS and the state it is in right now.
ATLAS, as I have been informed and as I have gathered from the promotional material and images that were provided on the store page, is an MMO involving pirates, sailing, all that fun stuff that should practically make the money for you. I mean it's a game in which the player is in control of the ship (I assume it's similar to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, or Assassin's Creed: Rogue), that idea screams full wallets flying at your collective faces. It gave you some monetary income I assume, and some are even defending your game, but a lot of people are not.

What I mentioned above comes back to my point from before, ARK. I've collected that this game was actually a piece of ARK DownLoadable Content (DLC) that has been ported into its own independant game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as this can often spring into fun new ideas and such, but the execution of it seems to be quite... poor to say the least. Players have waiting times up to - and sometimes over - two hours. The game performs very poorly, low framerates and high amount of server issues (especially on the public ones) and some of the assets and designs seem to have been flipped directly from your previous foray into the videogaming industry. Assetflipping is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the execution is done well, which it appears to not be the case for ATLAS.

My last complaint is one that was relevant at the time of my retreat from ARK as well. All your games seem to hit Early Access (EA) very early and remain in it for periods longer than you personally announce them to be. Do not be afraid to construct a game for a longer amount of time, it will eventually lead to a more well-developed and polished end product, putting all your products in EA can make your audience significantly wary of your business practices, and eventually will turn people away from you entirely, which is a massive shame of course, that's a fate no developing studio deserves.

In conclusion people are lashing back against you because they believe that they are onto you now, they believe that they have found out your schemes and they won't stand for it anymore, but you can still change this. I do not wish to see your studio disappear into the void of gaming history because of bad decisions that were made. I believe both ATLAS and ARK can be improved, can be made better, if the effort is put in, pay attention to the complaints and criticism and this situation will solve itself, but otherwise I fail to see hope for your future.

I hope you've read all of this, it would endear me to know that my voice is heard.

Signed

Basil Serpent, Palaeonerd, Videogaming enthusiast, and amateur critic.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Basil Serpent

[Jordan 12]

1 hour ago, Basil Serpent said:

I've collected that this game was actually a piece of ARK DownLoadable Content (DLC) that has been ported into its own independant game.

@Teach made a very interesting post about this:

 

 

[Basil Serpent 1]

6 hours ago, Jordan said:

@Teach made a very interesting post about this:

 

 

I wasn't calling it a bad thing necessarily, obviously assetflipping leads to a quicker development cycle and to more content more quickly, though I understand that my wording might've made it look like I meant otherwise.

[Hackjob 57]

Post was just way to long 

[Boredaholic 39]

Was actually a good read. I agree 100%. At the moment, it's very fun and playable. But very frustrating considering there was clearly no actual testing. So many settings need fine tuned by a TON to even be able to call yourself a "Pirate" that sails the seas. Good luck out there guys. I'm obviously still playing the game. I do like it, i do like the idea of it. Hoping within the next week the issues are resolved. The dev's have actually done a great deal fixing their constantly fucked up game... which... is impressive to say the least.

 

On a side note to all you "It's EA stop bitching" fucktards out there.

 

Yes it's an EARLY ACCESS game. However, being early access shouldn't mean "Buy this, it's broken... but we will eventually fix it enough to let people play it".

 

All you guys constantly bashing on people who've been complaining and saying that the "new generation of gamer's are just privilaged whiners", you may have a point, BUT you dont know any of us. You don't know our ages, you dont know what games we've played, you dont know our fucking gaming background. This is a forum for the game. The game has been broken from the start. People are going to be upset. It's normal. Don't like the whining and complaining from new and veteran gamers then here are a few steps for you. Please see below.

 

1.) unplug all cords from pc

2.) take it outside and place it gently on the ground

3.) run it over with a car/smash it with a hammer/toss it in a lake or ocean.

4.) Grab your phone out of your pocket, unless it's what you're reading this on, then in that case just hold it.

5.) Walk to the bathroom

6.) Gently place phone into toilet

7.) Flush said toilet

8.) Repeat with all portable electronic devices unless it's to big, if item is to big gently place it in the shower and turn the shower on plug the drain and walk away.

 

Then go on about your bad self without the internet because you need a safe place and the internet isn't it. Good luck out there in the real world if you cant handle a forum lol

Edited December 25, 2018 by Boredaholic

[Teach 79]

1 hour ago, Boredaholic said:

Yes it's an EARLY ACCESS game. However, being early access shouldn't mean "Buy this, it's broken... but we will eventually fix it enough to let people play it".

 

This is where perspectives vastly differ between what people expect from the EA program. You're seeing it as "Buy this, it's broken" as a bad thing. This project is in the earliest stage of EA; they wanted this to be a community-driven project, at the base foundation level. Think of how a skyscraper is built. You know when the building is nothing but steel bars? That's the framework of the building. ARK is the framework (the steel bars) of Atlas. ARK as a library needs to be back-ported to the updated unreal engine. This is not an easy task when it comes to integrating the new features of the engine, while not breaking code that was never originally meant to be used in these new ways.

There is another majority in this community that sees this project in the perspective of "Buy this, and help us create/test from basically the ground up". Adopting the right perspective for the environment would go a long way in altering your unnecessary disdain. Accepting the alpha for what it is will make you feel better on the inside, and tolerate what you've gotten yourself into.

I get into this more here:

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Teach

[Hackjob 57]

2 hours ago, Boredaholic said:

Was actually a good read. I agree 100%. At the moment, it's very fun and playable. But very frustrating considering there was clearly no actual testing. So many settings need fine tuned by a TON to even be able to call yourself a "Pirate" that sails the seas. Good luck out there guys. I'm obviously still playing the game. I do like it, i do like the idea of it. Hoping within the next week the issues are resolved. The dev's have actually done a great deal fixing their constantly fucked up game... which... is impressive to say the least.

 

On a side note to all you "It's EA stop bitching" fucktards out there.

 

Yes it's an EARLY ACCESS game. However, being early access shouldn't mean "Buy this, it's broken... but we will eventually fix it enough to let people play it".

 

All you guys constantly bashing on people who've been complaining and saying that the "new generation of gamer's are just privilaged whiners", you may have a point, BUT you dont know any of us. You don't know our ages, you dont know what games we've played, you dont know our fucking gaming background. This is a forum for the game. The game has been broken from the start. People are going to be upset. It's normal. Don't like the whining and complaining from new and veteran gamers then here are a few steps for you. Please see below.

 

1.) unplug all cords from pc

2.) take it outside and place it gently on the ground

3.) run it over with a car/smash it with a hammer/toss it in a lake or ocean.

4.) Grab your phone out of your pocket, unless it's what you're reading this on, then in that case just hold it.

5.) Walk to the bathroom

6.) Gently place phone into toilet

7.) Flush said toilet

8.) Repeat with all portable electronic devices unless it's to big, if item is to big gently place it in the shower and turn the shower on plug the drain and walk away.

 

Then go on about your bad self without the internet because you need a safe place and the internet isn't it. Good luck out there in the real world if you cant handle a forum lol

For sure we don't know you or experience but I can imagine a soon as people start throwing f bombs and profanities there just no point in taking someone serious. Let's have constructive conversation. Things aren't going to get fixed immediately will take time and some people don't consider this in EA. Some just assume as soon as it's they can buy it should be in a state THEY enjoy which is not always the case. I have certainly have had issues with the game as I Expected purchasing an EA product. Some people should just stay away from these games.

[Goldfish The Builder 105]

17 hours ago, Basil Serpent said:

 

...About three years ago I purchased ARK: Survival Evolved when it was in early access, and enjoyed it at the time, but soon after the issues began to grate on me, they began to weigh down the experience to torture rather than enjoyment...

..I've collected that this game was actually a piece of ARK DownLoadable Content (DLC) that has been ported into its own independant game...

 

If you don't want to play an EA game, and bug report, help make game better... then why keep buying early access games?