boomervoncannon

Okay. You don’t mind it. Understandable. But do you agree that when a person pays money for something, they have a right to have higher expectations than when they do not?

No. It is not. The difference between the two is paying for it. That is why I asked you to name all the alphas you paid to be in.

Ark wasn’t an alpha. It was EA. That is what matters. You are conflating a thing people paid for with a thing they didn’t.

Please name all of the alphas you paid to be part of.

My hobby is gaming. Gaming is what I do for leisure, for fun. Explain to me again why when I pay $25 for a game, EA or no, I have no right to expect it to be fun? The way you are attempting to frame the parameters of discussion implies that expecting this is unreasonable on my part. I respectfully submit that I have every right even when a game is marketed as EA, that it should be fun. Additionally, I dislike your attempts to dismiss what I view as cogent, reasoned arguments as”angst”. No one in this thread is engaging in such overblown handwringing. On the other hand, you failed to address my direct question regarding whether design choices about weight and crew limits and sinking are competent. Your rsponse seemed to be a hand wave saying “oh this game is complicated on a massive scale, they can’t get everything right upfront.” No one is expecting such things, but especially in view of a team that very publicly claimed to have learned a lot from their mistakes on Ark, I consider this a prime example of something any competent developer should have caught from the beginning. It’s just not a defensible design choice for a development team that has produced a game noteworthy for the level of exploiting.

So here’s where we disagree. I fully understand this is EA and that means the is unpolished. I’m fully prepared to accept that. What I’m not prepared to accept is the notion that the players are the only QA for 2 reasons: 1. As previously outlined by another poster, this is an extremely poor approach to QA that inadequately fulfills the QA role. 2. The material difference between prior open beta approaches and EA is that we are in fact paying for something. Paying for something gives you a right to a higher expectation than not paying anything. Accepting that the game is unfinished is not the same as accepting that design choices to this point seem baffling and indefensible in the face of common sense. Explain how not forseeing that ship crew limits and weight limits cause sinking combined with allowing outside parties to affect these things isn’t foolish regardless of what stage of design. Some things they shouldn’t need playtesting to figure out. As a customer I’m less than thrilled to pay for a game only to discover basic initial design choices that demonstrate less than a competent approach to game design.

Well at least this sort of thing doesn’t discourage exploration in an exploration game. *eyeroll*

By a wide margin the best Rorschach line ever. I suggest Fugazi or the Cranberries song Zombie as ideal blasting music. My college roommate used these on me when I had to be up early for exams. Pro tip: morning people under the age of 65 are aliens. Real human beings do not get up early by choice. Use this and other key indicators like people who claim to prefer crunchy chocolate chip cookies to chewy to detect aliens hiding among us.

Couldnt agree with this more. This is the thing that it feels like GrapeCard either doesn’t do at all, or does so badly you can’t tell it’s being done.

Just to be clear, my background is in business so my normal way of thinking is “hell yeah the accounting dept can take customer service phone calls in a pinch.” I just was repeatedly told otherwise by people who, if they didn’t work directly in game development, at least are knowledgeable about coding, something I couldn’t do if my life depended on it. Anyway I think the obvious bottom line here is there is a ton of stuff that needs fixing, and while we’re all aware this is EA (just in case somebody hasn’t mentioned it in the last 30 seconds), to me it seems that part of the reason the plane is doing a yard dart impression is that someone put the wings on backwards and it’s unclear how they might have thought that was ever a good idea in the first place.

Hrm....if I don’t pay my own kids, does that fall under child labor laws or just usual household chores? ”Kids I need enough mats for a galleon by bedtime or no mall for you this weekend.”

Lol, look if your argument is that the game needs better QA, you’re preaching to the choir. All I’m saying is that people who know have told me multiple times that the best way to do it is pretty much never to pull the art major from their job and make them QA. This was something I had to be told repeatedly from multiple sources online and then ultimately double checked with a cousin with a CS degree from Duke and his gf who sits on some kind of worldwide technology standards committee. It was an idea I really wanted to resist, but ultimately had to accept. Also the video is funny.

For all the things GrapeCard can fairly be criticized for, banning without evidence is one I’m dubious about. Yes people get banned without having a chance to defend themselves, but when the evidence is chat logs of you saying racist stuff ingame, at that point what is there to defend? Offenders aren’t being imprsoned or e executed, full due process is neither necessary or warranted. It’s just a game.

I can't agree with this except in the most extreme circumstances. What Atlas lacks is not enough people playing it to have QA. Much as I might take issue with Percivels assertion that WE are the QA team and this is as it should be in EA (the part I take issue with is the "as it should be" part), it is hard to argue based on the available information against the notion that we are effectively the QA. Given our numbers, having the art team quit doing art to pitch in with us wouldn't make much sense. Beyond that specific example what I'm saying is that the kind of coding required to do the work that would fix games systems is the kind of coding the art major has no background in and would have to be taught from the ground up. Right about the time Atlas is ready for release two years down the road, the art major MIGHT be ready to do some game mechanic coding. I say this not because I have any background in coding, but because I have been told pretty much this thing by people who do repeatedly in the past when airing my own similar complaints on prior game forums. The analogy that best helped me wrap my mind around it was presented to me this way by a long time veteran coder: The pilot and the stewardess and the airplane mechanic all work on airplanes. But if you need the plane flown and the pilot isn't available, having the stewardess fly instead just because she works on a plane is not a good idea. Likewise the pilot could in theory help the mechanic fix things, but his help is gonna be limited to handing the mechanic the requested tool and maybe holding the light in the right spot, and if you're paying a pilot to do this, you're not going to be in business as an airline very long.

So I think there are legitimate points on both sides of this debate. On the one hand, people can say, well it's not pure pirate themed, it's pirate/fantasy, so that gives them an out to put stuff in. (I would point out that a working metal submarine is neither fantasy nor age of exploration specific, since such things weren't in use until at least the american civil war, and even then were poorly working early designs at best.) On the other, the counterpoint to this is to say "Yeah but I bought this game because I like sailing and pirates, not for that other junk." To the extent that GrapeCard ignores this sentiment if widely held amongst not only it's playerbase, but potential players, it does so to it and the game's detriment. In the end I think the game's developers should tread very carefully in deciding how far they want to stretch the pirate/sailing theme from it's core appeal, because to do so is to risk losing a lot of people. I say this not as someone particularly enamored with pirates and sailing, because to be frank I'm not (my gaming partner loves them), but as someone with a background in marketing looking at this through a business decision lens.

I sympathize with your frustration about core game systems because I share it. Most of this game's core systems were released in a state that not only isn't optimized, but the initial design choice leaves one wondering what the devs were thinking. Case in point, how do you not see weight or crew limits causing sinking even in pve leading inevitably to player griefing? You don't need ANY experience designing games to see that coming from a mile away and not do it, you just need practical play experience. However, regarding doodads, one of the things we have to keep in mind is that development teams are not borg hive collectives, with x number of developers all with interchangeable and fungible skills. The people who design the doodads are a seperate team from the people who work on say coding of game mechanics. Not putting in doodads doesn't speed up addressing game mechanic flaws, it just means your doodad team sits around twiddling their thumbs.

Quick pro tip, because I found yellow vitamin extremely frustrating at first til I learned this: digging with a shovel in non sand or rock areas will yield potatoes, which are yellow vitamin food.

To the best of my knowledge wipes have not been mentioned and I have followed Atlas news reasonably closely even prior to EA release. It would be reasonable to assume a wipe at official launch but that is according to the devs at least two years down the road. Other wipes prior to release are obviously possible, but I'm not aware of discussion either way on their part. Jat has taken primary responsiblity for communicating with the playerbase, so I would keep an eye on his posts going forward.

This is my favorite post today. Welcome to the forums.

...Aannd you’ve just hinted at where the Op’s analogy is flawed and breaks down. Your home is your private property and you have the right to defend it and dictate what is allowed to happen there within the bounds of the law. Within the game world of Atlas is not directly comparable because you do not have nor should expect the same rights. What you should expect is reasonable enforcement of the developers rules as laid down by them. If they fail to do so or you don’t agree with the rule set, you are free to vote with your time and wallet and leave.Before you say but they already have my money, you should be aware that one of the factors giving you the consumer extra leverage in an MMO is the business model. Contrary to popular belief and claims of cash grab, the business model of MMO’s means they have enormous upfront costs that the price of the game purchase alone rarely makes back. Revenue over time in the form of subscription fees or cash shop purchas s is where Atlas will make its money. That means GrapeCard needs to keep you around until they put the cash shop in to hope to make their money back in full let alone a profit This means that if their approach to the Chinese or other players from cultures that practice disruptive play styles is unacceptable to you, walk. If enough players do it, you will find “We can’t do anything about Chinese” is a tune that will change rapidly or they won’t last long.

Where in the Op’s post did you see him say anything about polar or tundra? Or call for temps to be increased across the board?

Be advised the Op does not own Atlas. Anything he says relating to gameplay or mechanics is based upon secondhand information, not his own play experience. His post history will also document that he has been caught lying and engaging in double speak within the past week or so.

Forgive me for not being in the habit of giving out participation trophies for companies I do business with. A student I am instructing will get such encouragement. I have higher expectations for putatively professional organizations, though perhaps given their track record, with this bunch it becomes a bar too high. ugh. I know you are only joking. I am being cranky before coffee. Posting pre coffee often is a bad idea.

I got news for you, the fiasco of their communication leading up to launch says otherwise. Also you just completely missed my point. It wasn’t hard to find twitter, but I never suggested it was. Rather I suggested two things: 1. You need to first know to go to twitter. Not everyone who uses these forums is aware of the devs tendency to only post to twitter. 2. Regardless of the ease of searching for twitter, the counterpoint is that it is no more difficult for them to also post the announcement here, and the responsibility to communicate in this instance lies at their end, not the players.

Yeah forgive my skepticism when your only source is yourself, but these kinds of claims aren’t the sort of thing I’m willing to just take someone’s word for on a game forum. Were the roles reversed I doubt you would either.