boomervoncannon

Censorship in a public forum is indeed quite awful. Censorship of a forum paid for and maintained by the owners of a game is imo not awful. The game is a business, it exists to make money. It is commendable when gaming forums are open with their players and don’t suppress criticism like some do, and as someone who is at times critical of this game and it’s developers, I appreciate that GrapeCard let’s me have my say here even when it’s critical. I don’t think they owe this to me, nor is it any right. I think it’s a smart business decision because being open with your players can lead to valuable feedback even if, and sometimes especially when, it’s negative. if the forum is owned and run by the game, it’s developers have every right to decide how much or how little they want to restrict speech there. I think that developers which do not suppress comments that are critical are making a smart business decision that happens to align nicely with our tradition of free speech.

Thanks @Dollie for sharing that video of how the sounds for ships were recorded from an actual sailing ship especially for the game. That's really cool.

How can you take a statement that says extremely clearly we're not sure but for now until you hear otherwise go with no, and turn that into, it's a default yes unless they can figure out a way not to? I have no idea if there will actually be a wipe or not, but that statement is not really ambiguous. They don't know for sure, but the default is no.

Btw I forgot to thank Whitehawk for starting this thread. I'm in favor of anything that is positive, even a few days after I've leveled some of my strongest criticisms at the game. It's easy to fall into a negative mindset especially with a game doing poorly, but for the most part we wouldn't be here if we didn't care about the game, and we only care because at some point, it let us have fun. I have enjoyed many fun hours with friends playing Atlas so far, probably I liked going on expeditions to the north to gather metal etc the most, or going out hunting SOTD's.

Can you say when and where they said this? My understanding is they have not said either way, however I do not pay attention to discord or twitter, so if it was said there I would be unaware.

Not to disagree too sharply, but I want to make a point here. This is not a beta game. People continue to conflate the terms beta or alpha testing with Early Access. The two are qualitatively different. There may be other differences as well but the main one for my point is that people did not pay to participate in betas or alphas, in fact a lot of the testing in those stages were done by paid testers. Early Access we pay for, and imo one of the changes that should bring is a greater level of communication with the playerbase. We are no longer people on the payroll or testing a game for free, we are customers, and in my book customers who are using an unfinished product have a right to expect a greater level of open communication about development progress.

My understanding is that this is one of the benefits of structures like 4 high walls etc as found in Ark. Not only does it make building large structures less tedious, but it also reduces the number of discrete structures the game needs to render, hastening and smoothing that process. I would expect that sort of thing to be added at some point along the line as development progresses.

Realist, how many times in posting have you said "Yeah the wipe is definitely gonna happen." or words to that effect? And now you want to say don't put that on me? Come on man. Be accountable for what you've said. I'm not saying you're the only source for this, note I said you weren't the only one, but you are by far the most person doing this the most visibly and repeatedly on the boards. Are there other places people could get a wrong impression? Sure, but why should we needlessly contribute to that? Saying I never said it was confirmed isn't the point. You're stating it as a fact in the first place. Needlessly. You are right you aren't the only one, which is why comment isn't solely directed to you, but you are in a heartbeat the first person that springs to mind for this. Others have done it, but not as often, and you are one of the most visible posters here. All I'm asking is that you be mindful of that. I have never seen anyone post to this board the lie that "grapeshot just confirmed the wipe." What I have seen is a number of people talking about a wipe as if it is a sure thing. If people are actively lying, let's not contribute to that atmosphere by muddying the waters. And yes that is better as long as you make it a habit and not a onetime thing.

@Realist and anyone else here who has talked about a wipe as if it is a foregone conclusion, stating your personal preferences and desires as if they are facts, please take note of this OP and think about the effect your statements are having. Since the devs have stated repeatedly that they will only wipe if they feel it is needed, and no upcoming wipe has even been discussed publicly by them, let alone confirmed, where do you think the most likely source of this OP's misconception originates? It is perfectly fine to have opinions. It is perfectly fine to express those opinions. It is perfectly fine to state what you think will/should/needs to happen. But in doing so, please be clear in your wording that you are only expressing an opinion. I have seen more than one frequent poster here declare that a wipe will happen with no factual basis or confirmation from the devs, often repeatedly. This is clearly contributing to the already less than stellar level of communication with the playerbase because people read what you say on the forums and go back ingame and spread rumors that a wipe will happen. Should they know better than to take a poster's word as fact? Undoubtedly, but when you state something so confidently as a foregone conclusion repeatedly, it's not hard to see how that contributes to confusion and misunderstanding. People think you know something they don't, and that turns into speculation and ill founded rumor. I have made recent critical statements and even offered my own speculations as to what I think might be going on behind the scenes, but when I do so I go out of my way to make clear I am only speculating. In the interest of limiting disinformation, please be mindful of your wording in distinguishing expressing opinions vs stating facts. You might feel like you are just being more emphatic when you say "The wipe is definately gonna happen." vs "I think a wipe is necessary." but the unintended impact of your words may be greater than you think, especially if you're a highly visible poster here. Some folks in searching for info will see you statement, see your post count, and assume you know something they don't. Preventing that requires only a minor, more honest change to the wording of your statements.

I now really badly want a new food recipe called Green Eggs and Ham which gives varying buffs depending upon whether it is eaten on a boat or with a goat, in a box or with a fox.

Oh I get that, I've done plenty of things because friends wanted to just to do something fun. Hell playing Atlas was one of those things. My longtime gaming buddy likes pirates and sailing and didn't like Ark, but I thought she might like Atlas so I suggested it. We've been struggling in recent years to find a game we both enjoy, and for a brief period it seemed like Atlas might be that game. She is, let us say less patient with the development process and design flaws etc than I am, so she has now quit Atlas for the second time. She might come back at some point down the road, she might not, I dunno, but I certainly don't fault you for doing something just to hang with your buds.

Sorry if I came across a bit sharp. I hope what they're doing works, I really do. I'm also on record as saying that if the devs determine a wipe is needed for technical reasons, I'm prefectly fine with that. If they do a wipe merely to meet the demands of a loud minority insisting they must get things their way or they'll walk, well that's not something I have any respect for, and I don't think it's a legitmate business need based reason, I think it's just giving a loud kid candy because he demands it to shut him up.

Thanks for the insight. I realize as you say, you can only make educated guesses, but since you have some background in this area and I don't, as they say "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king." I do agree that how crowded the Xbox release space is likely can be a factor and with the all important to retail 4th quarter coming up, without knowing anything concrete my guess is it could be pretty crowded. If what you describe is true about the scheduling and timelines and nature of projects, and it all sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I can see why the decision making process makes more sense from where they are sitting. All I can say is that regardless of how much sense that might make from a project management perspective, from where I sit the prospects for the outcome of said path from a marketing perspective don't appear promising. My guess is that Xbox players are even less accustomed to playing unfinished games still under development than PC players, and thus as a group will have less patience for Atlas's current state regardless of any clear labels on the box stating "Early Access game". Remember all those folks back in January and February already pounding the table and demanding all the bugs be fixed yesterday? Those were PC folks who by comparison should be more used to playing a game still in progress than console players.

I thnk you are vastly overestimating A. How many players are following Atlas closely enough to make a purchase decision based upon whether there is a wipe. Keep in mind that the Xbox market is vast beyond whatever number of people you know who are tweeting, snapchatting, instagramming, facebooking, Myspacing or telling their Uber driver about it. There will certainly be some number of players just as passionate about this issue as you are, I don't doubt that, but just as we here on the forums represent some small percentage of Atlas players even with this tiny playerbase, the number of Xbox players following Atlas closely is almost certainly some very minor portion. Quite a few folks are likely to buy Atlas based on nothing more than "Hey this is a pirate game from the guys who made Ark. I like pirates, I like Ark, lets check it out." At this point to me the most important issue is whether those folks buy a flaming dumpster fire or not, because if they do, they won't be here long. B. How much weight you can actually assign to people declaring they will never buy or play a game if X. I have been following games and gaming forums for 15 years now and I can't count the number of times someone has publicly quit a game over something they despised only to come back at some point later down the road drawn back because the things they liked about the game ultimately outweighed the things they didn't. Some who say they won't play it will stick to their guns, but if you care enough about trying out a new game to loudly and publicly declare you won't play it if the devs don't X, chances are you are trying it out regardless, you're just trying to work the refs to get what you want, which is fine, we all do it, but experience tells me it's less indicative of actual behavior than one might think. I think in the end loud declarations by various parties that they won't buy the game if there isn't a wipe will amount to "...sound and fury, signifying nothing."

My viewpoint is based entirely on a business and marketing perspective because that's what I have a solid grasp of, and it's honestly what I believe needs to be the overriding consideration for a game struggling mightily at this point. I have no idea about the technical side, but can you offer a guess about what percentage of the team's resources might be needed in order to meet the technical needs of launching on xbox? Because if that percentage is anything but tiny, then my business oriented position would be that the emphasis really should be on improving the game first so that any Xbox rollout has a chance to do better than PC performance. I view any significant diversion of developer time and resources away from improving a failing game as a misplaced priority. There is an exception to this: if the financial situation is dire and the need for cash overrides all other considerations. I don't know anything about GrapeCard's financial state, but the information I do have suggests it's possible it could be not good. If true, that makes the game's overall chances even gloomier because of the way it limits decision makers ability to do what is needed instead of what is urgent. Regarding any newness buffer, based on our experience here, I would suggest that buffer has a maximum window of 90 days, and that may be generous. I base this on the fact that Atlas's PC launch suffered an 80% attrition rate within that same period and with an unchanged game it would be reasonable to expect similar results. It might even be less because since the game is not brand new and there is at least some review history, Xbox players may very well give Atlas less time to prove itself. "See, the PC crowd was right, once you build a ship and a base and tame a few animals, there's not much to do but a single boss and one dungeon. Let's go play FIFA and gamble all our money away on lootboxes."

My argument is that doing the purely technical project that brings in cash will be penny wise and pound foolish because if you haven't improved your game at all, and don't intend to immediately after Xbox launch, whatever cash that garners will be far outweighed in the long run by the ruining of the game's reputation on a second platform and second market. If the new guy gets the game headed in the right direction after all that, but by that point it's the same ghost town it is now because Xbox players were treated to the same experience no one liked here, who will know at that theoretical point some nebulous distance down the road? If you don't fix your game first, then release on Xbox, you're not just pointing the gun at your own foot, you're pulling the pin and dropping the grenade down your shorts while humming Suicide is Painless (the theme from MASH).

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/profile/101892-eeeceee/ Newish guy. Joined a month ago. Posts a fair bit. Not impressed with Realist. Plays NA PVE.

Here is where this argument falls completely apart: The assumption they will do something because it is the best economic decision. If they were going to do that, you know what would matter far far FAR more than doing a wipe or not doing a wipe at Xbox launch? Improving it so you aren't attempting to sell Xbox players the same game that bombed hardcore with PC players. It's debatable how many Xbox players know or care strongly about whether the game is freshly wiped or not, spare me Realist's assertions pulled from where the sun don't shine, any assertion about what a group of people numbering over 100 that you don't know personally and haven't communicated with directly is tenous at best. What isn't debatable is Atlas's chances of succeeding if it's released as the exact same game on Xbox as it is on pc with no improvement beforehand. Go on, tell me the people who are going to do that make rational and intelligent business decisions or that wiping is more important in that respect than fixing the game first. Be prepared to be laughed at if you do.

Partial solution at best. Unless you are making 50k worth of ammo, you’re then going to have to bring all your other mats from wherever to that smithy. For fiber this won’t matter, but just about everything else has non insignificant weight costs associated. Still, might be the best option depending....

Well the impact Apple has had in the marketplace has forced other companies to be more mindful of things like designing their products with more of a focus on asthetics and user friendliness, so in that way I would argue that Jobs has contributed beyond just advancing the image of a business. The world likes to look at things in terms of black and white, this person is good or bad, this thing is good or bad, but reality is rarely that straightforward. I think that Jobs legacy is an impact on multiple industries that yielded both positives and negatives.

I refer you back to the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sometimes the past is relevant because it can be instructive about what we should reasonably expect in the future.

The problem is that another component of Jobs personality was his dictatorial "my way or the highway" leadership. He could be brilliant, and there were aspects of his mentality that I highlighted because they were relevant here, but he could also be a huge dick. The reason this relates to him not having a better product is that the very best people in an industry usually get to choose to work wherever they want, and by and large they rarely choose to work for a guy who screams at them to just do things his way.

Which is fine, if you're actually getting anything before everyone quits from boredom at the lack of content. The overarching point of this thread is that there is literally no reason based on what has happened to date to believe this won't happen again on Xbox. You might still be here, because as you've said eleventy bajillion times you're a grinder and would be perfectly happy hitting the same rock all day. Everyone else will be gone. You yourself in other threads are shaking your head at the bottoming out of the activity levels in this game, yet you seem to magically think things will somehow be different on Xbox with the exact same game. Why?

Yes and the interesting thing about how this relates to Realist is the fact he began his time here proclaiming Wildcard as evil and down with Atlas and everything related. Now as the game has failed to come anywhere close to expectations, he has weirdly become a huge fan who is fine with a game he's never played yet having almost no content and perfectly happy that it won't have any new content for months after it's Xbox debut. What's that acronmym I'm looking for... Smh.

I’ll remember you said this once you’re ingame and after a month everyone you know is bitching about the complete lack of content beyond one boss, one dungeon and powerstones. This is another one of your statements that has most people who have actually played rolling their eyes at what you’re saying.