krazmuze

If you thought they had promised a AMA style Q&A let me save you some time - they certainly did not go thru the official q&a forum thread and checklist answer every question.    They had no intent to do that, it is communication as usual glean what you can from discord, twitter and future captains logs.

The  intro Q&A stream was followed by their usual megapatch content dump, followed by some very selective chat questions.

They answered five 'questions' most of which you could already guess what the answer was

Here is my take on their answers, but if you can also read their answers in the official captains log and skip that part of the video.

Xbox when? when they are ready to announce they will....

- is this not a realistic pirate game?   

- does it not have lore? 

no it is pirate fantasy with  'tek' but it has its own lore so it makes it entirely different than Ark although that lore reveal will happen the same way that it did in Ark with mega content drops.  Like the next megaupdate one you can harpoon boats so that makes it more piratey (or just torpedo them which is more 'lore' and not at all pirates). 

- OK can you at least give us the wiped pirate hats you promised?   

well they have a bunch of new content to get out first and that would require a database crawl to figure out who deserves it and they did not schedule that activity yet.  (In case you think I am being flippant then please watch the video that is indeed the excuse given)

- Will next megaupdate wipe?

NO, but they as before will wipe whenever game changing is needed because this is early access.  But hey do not worry if that happens maybe they will do another cosmetic item reward for surviving pre1.0 wipes!

bonus end chat Q&A is worth watching because that was not documented in captains log.  Here is what I recall.

WTF is with all the tames they are not piratey? they let people get more stuff so pirates have more to gank (yes they said this do you think I am just sarcastically making this up?).  SO they will be doing more tames and easier breeding and a TLC update but this is not Ark so only dozens not hundreds of tames.

WTF we want more ship types?   Hey you get cosmetic figure heads and wheels and pirate armor and paint jobs so every ship can look different.  But they will consider a QOL pass for sails possibly at some point to fix the speed sail meta.

Trying not to be sexist on stream they suggested they have a list of mostly unisex m/f variants to get thru for skins.  After that they would consider sexier outfits for women but suggested if they did do more RP clothing - say a belly dancer outfit they jokingly said to be equal opportunity they would have to make a male thong version....it came off more sounding like that was why they would not do it.

Personally I play both male and female characters and would like just enough distinction so that from the backside I can tell which character I am on rather than doing a beard check using k mode....

it is a custom map (think ARK map with modded Atlas mechanics) not an island for your multigrid atlas servers.   It is for single grid servers.  See the most recent captains log for preview early access is next month. 

They gave a vague promise that the new equatorial biome template it uses will be ported back to Atlas proper, but anyone that thinks that can be done without a wipe is deluding themselves.  That did not even happen in ark when biomes changed despite promises of no wipe.  They already wiped last time to change the tundra biome.

1 hour ago, Poharan said:

Please add in a way to change our characters appearance. Like an item you can buy from the cosmetics merchant that lets you re-customize your character. I'm sure lots of people like myself who noticed little flaws or simply got sick of the way their character looks would appreciate an option to alter their appearance.

2nd this especially since they made all unofficial characters that did not wipe into hobbits, as well as the character preview not really being useable nor game lighting realistic.

It is not a large open world, it is an MMO with 225 different zones with much easier server teleportation than Ark had.

While they have said the new ISO modders map is not intended for official, I wonder what would happen if the 5th and 6th networks they supposedly bought but never released was repurposed as individual ISO servers.  Would people play on the large Atlas, or would they choose an ISO instance?

they do not spawn for you, if player kill rate is greater than the spawn rate they will be hard to find.  Go find a grid where the player kill rate is less than the spawn rate.     You have overfished.

Someone beat you to this idea last week, my suggestion was 1/4 the way in so each segment is the same portion of the perimeter.  Certainly it would need a different shimmer color so you do not go diag when you intended to go straight.

Can you spend more time supporting and engaging unofficials in your quality process?   This is where the majority of your population went during the megapatch process and we deserve better support!

- The change to remove discovery zones in freeports removes an exploration game mechanic, unofficial that cannot afford to use freeports without other islands due to being small servers those other isles no longer can be discovered.    Not everyone abuses fast travel, those that do only cheat themselves, no need to punish those who do not.

- AutoGenerateIslandSpawnRegions=false is not working, it resets to true so           "spawnPointRegionOverride": 0 to 3 is not controlling spawning in freeports when you have mixed in other islands on that grid.

- The unnecessary change to strip bare the WU powerstone island in favor of the EU powerstone island, caused it to wipe.

- The unnecessary change to an islands origin (Cay_C_EE_PVE and Mnt_C_EE) caused them to wipe.

- The editor is creating duplicated ids when updating maps, this needs manual editing to workaround.

I suggest hanging out in Atlas Server Owners Support discord to get a greater consensus of the map making and content issues people are having with the megaupdates.   

45 minutes ago, gadefence said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_of_the_Earth

But I played that game already when it was called ARK, then Scorched Earth then.....

That would not be much of a atlas for sailing as pirates from island to island if you just teleported to another world with magical science.   

nvm

That is still a potential, while technically adding islands is not cause for a wipe - moving other islands out of the way to accommodate a better island layout or biome replacements certainly is - that is one of the reasons they wiped last time.

I for one would like to hear how they plan to add a new biome without a wipe because the only way to do that is to wipe grids unless they plan atlas south or east expansion which loses the north/south east/west atlas organization they have now.

Would seem to be a simple matter of having another color for the corners so that you know when you are making the corner crossing. it is just a collision plane would be easy to bound segment it and have different teleport depending on how far from the corner.  I think 1/4th away from the corner would be fair that would make each cardinal direction having a 1/2 perimeter opening.   Although technically you would be literally cutting corners but as long as anyone chasing you also cuts the corner, that is fair.

 Incorrect.

In fact what they said when they announced the official wipe, was that unofficial would not have to wipe because they would simply  delete the old claim flags and force players to buy the new island flag claims (they later just left the default as Empires which was not part of the original plan).   So absolutely it was never a requirement to wipe because of the claim flag system, they could have simply wiped the flags.

They actually have reserve server networks if we are to believe that they did musical chairs with PTR/live because they was not ready yet....

But before we go back to the claim flags limits idea, lets first solve that nightmare of bugged overlapping claims with a hex grid.  1g per grid.  There certainly would have to be company limits so that companies cannot expand their empire just by becoming a zerg, more like colonies in that the total islands they can hold is restricted.  Yes that means you do not add to the collective holdings if you join them you have to give up your lands.

On 4/18/2019 at 9:50 PM, José Gaspar said:

I was holding out open that the Developers would catch a clue about PvE players and at least try an all-lawless map to set player preference

That would be a mistake.  Settlements are rejected because they offer no benefit over lawless on PVE.  But that does not mean that lawless is the preferred server type, it just means it is the lesser of two evils choice.  If they had listened to their customer base the overwhelming opinion was that Empires flagging system on PVE would work if it had limits and rules.   Unofficial PVE which runs it with limits and rules is proof it was a good system poorly implemented.  If they are going to server experiment it should be with Empires PVE with limits and rules.

I do not see that as an issue if your stuff has flag protection only under your flag and not just any flag it happens to be in.   If the issue is people swapping things amongst companies flag to stay safe - then put a cooldown on that mechanic so it can not be exploited to avoid a war.    The same exploit exists within a grid of islands, it is not a unique problem to a gridded island.

The idea that dividing islands does not work on PVP is megacorp thinking, if colonies was actually small tribes and solos as originally promoted this would be a none issue.    Just look at the real world there is always divided lands in the world that people are fighting over to redraw the boundaries.   That is why I promote the hex grid because it allows flexible redrawing of boundaries.    Work to gain power to take over larger islands a hex at a time - it should not be given to you just because you are the faster gold farmer.

23 hours ago, DocHolliday said:

Some of the islands are very odd shapes and have smaller islands like an archipelago.  It would be difficult creating even spaces and most likely you'd end up with some land that is damn near useless. 

Which is exactly why wargames have used hex grids for decades.  Make them small and they can very easily follow coasts, rivers, and mountains.   You could have a hex grid small enough that it cost only 1g - barely enough to fit a hut.  But spend 20g you could go up the river, down the coast and over to the mountain.  The very reason that it is arguable how you would macroslice something is why you use a microgrid.

With hexes you could have someone own the sahara, someone owns the coasts, someone else owns the middle east, someone else owns the congo with a hermit living in Madagascar.  In time that map of who owns what could change (because the game meta changes) because the grid is granular enough it has inherent flexibility to shift borders. Or you could have a several dozen solos all coexisting without building on top of each other.   Or you could have the megacorp spending 100g owning and risking it all at one location.

5 hours ago, [GP] Guybrush Threepwood said:

The reason for the last wipe was to clear the claim system, not to introduce new islands.

They could have easily deleted the flags only - in fact they said that was the original plan for unofficial that they would lose the individual flags and have to replace with colony flags but the map and chars would not need to wipe.   This was before they added empires and kept the old flag code in the game.

The real wipe reason was the cheated exploited duped mess of chars and bases.   Islands could have been added and flags could have been deleted without wiping chars or bases.

By that argument there was no need for them to wipe with the last megapatch because all they did was add copy pasted islands, new trench and new tundras.  But they can make a better map by relocating things, moving them within grid which requires a grid wipe, and they also rebalanced discoveries which required a character wipe.   The real reason for wiping was for duping and hacked characters and based on ark, that is never going to change.   They might do ARK style soft wipe of here is a new server with new stuff, and let players wipe themselves off the old servers.  Or my favorite ARK move was promising they are not changing the terrain it would just be biome cosmetics, only to find your base was ruined by terrain changes.

You do need an ISP/router that supports using static external IP so you can go out and back in.    Or you can use internal IP 128 or the here IP 127, with the downside that every logout server needs added to steam favorite servers list because the game cannot find the servers nor do automatic rejoins.

The post should be revised to say single player mode should be made more accessible but the point is it already exists.  Many players that play the MMO also use it to scout and create and test offline.

The planned ISO mod map was supposed to be single server ark style with everything on it.

hexes would only cover islands so it is not an issue that the servers themselves are grids.    They are way more flexible than someone else deciding how to carve up an island, it allows the players themselves to decide how to carve up islands based on how many flags they can afford to their limit.

hexes are way more useful than square grids and why wargames have used them for decades, they can easily follow  terrain features.      It solves the problem of prior claim flags being overlapped circles

unofficial is proof individual claims with limits and admin rules works so I hope they do not forgot the system now that official Empires mode is dead....they are going to need it once they finally figure out landlords will never work.

I thought the first number was days?   You are saying it is hours?!  I get 6: when I look at mine and I was sure it used to say 21: back when it was three weeks.

Claim stealing is not allowed on our server so not been a problem yet, but never know if a random will logon six hours after your logoff - no admin rule can protect against that.

TO clarify we are the old system of individual claim flags, this is not the island flags.