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rodarin

Pathfinder
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About rodarin

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    Landlubber
  1. I will take it a step further. I think theyre manipulating the numbers. The game was 'bronze' (whatever that means) for December when it went on sale. Meaning it didnt sell a whole lot of copies. It didnt even make the 2018 list. That means to me anyway (since people want to use 'stats') that overall it didnt sell many copies. I said I didnt think it sold 75K. Even though at its peak it was close to 60K on steam charts. But not hard to believe that 80% of everyone who bought it were playing or trying to play it when it became stable enough to stay connected. Especially when 200K plus people were sitting on twitch streamer channels on the (first) night it was (supposed) to be released. Or the numbers could have been fake from the start. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2018_so_far_top_sellers/ https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2018_top_new/ (not the one I saw before but Atlas did at least make that list) They also had multiple 'streamer only' events. Everyone of them manipulated in some way shape or form to have way more viewers than they 'should' have had. Fistofthewalrus most notably. his 'normal' viewership is around 400-500 the night of one of these 'special' events he had over 11K. That scream bots obviously. Now people will claim its 'impossible' for the numbers to be manipulated. All I can say to that is LOL. While obviously Atlas shouldnt be the center of some big 'conspiracy' theory. It stands to reason it was a con job from jumpstreet. With its only defense the ever popular 'its early access'. Which people (defenders of any particular game) excuses anything and everything thats 'wrong' with it. The fake trailer was the first giveaway and even the special preview event showed how farcical that thing was. If I didnt know any better I would say they let Chris Roberts shoot it for them He is the king of movie making and claiming its 'in game footage'. But everyone who knew anything knew (or should have known) the official servers would be garbage. With exactly every problem they saw happening. Hacks, cheats, land grabbing, offline raiding, anything and everything that was bad about Ark happened in Atlas. But nope its all ok because its 'early access'. They could possibly have had any clue any of that would happen even though it did (and still is) happening in their flagship game. The one this game was actually a DLC for. So it comes down to a lot of guesses and seemingly contradictory thinking. But I dont think its a stretch to think they have the ability to add a certain number of 'players' to the steam chart count, and even with those the numbers have cratered. But considering the game and where its gone and what it is now compared to what it was when it was even not a joke to think it was 'popular' (at least FoTM) 25K at peak is actually quite impressive, thats why I think theyre 'faking' them. Because I cant think that a third of the people who bought it are still bothering to log in with any regularity. And had they sold THAT many copies the game would have made the list of top selling games of 2018. Even if it only released 10 days or so before the end of the year. Thats why I say there is plenty of 'data' and circumstantial 'evidence' but nothing concrete. Just like every other MMO before where people liked to make up numbers (to support whatever argument they were making) as to how 'successful' or 'fail' a new game was. But with Atlas we have hard numbers on some but guessing on others. Since they havent had a press release about how awesome sales were then I will assume they were shit. I would also say that of the 75K sales I think they had 10% of those refunded it. Now the game has been put on sale twice now since its was released and I am sure it will go on sale every month until it does release. So they maybe recouped a few of those refunds but given the word of mouth this thing has gotten and the disappearing (free) advertising and the streamers leaving the officials for private servers or outright leaving the game completely theyre not getting those collateral sales. Streamers who promoted this trash and conned their subs (or worse conning viewers to sub) to play with them sold a lot of copies I would imagine. But as predicted theyre all gone and ironically most are off playing the new Sea of Thieves update. Game has/had potential problem is the wrong company is making it and on the wrong engine.
  2. Got an error awhile ago thought site might have been down went ot main site everything is showing but Atlas isnt there anymore. If you search for it it gives a page with some info but not sure how accurate it is when you click the link it gives the same error.
  3. I think people are freaking out because death means jack and shit right now in the game. "regular'' Deaths. So now that a 'new' kind of death actually has consequences people want it to not be the case. Ironically these are the same people who have been telling other critics (for other reasons) 'this game might not be for you'. There is no 'simple' solution for this one I guess. But like I said its always about perspective. Everyone loves everything until they dont. If something isnt affecting you personally you dont care, once it does watch out. But in the end anyone who criticizes this dumpster fire is right in some form or another. A lot of 'cool' ideas and when you read them or theyre talked about you can shrug and say 'yeah that sounds 'different'. Problem is the implementation of each and every 'cool' thing is atrocious. Theyre are a lot of ways to do them but they chose the stupidest (which usually requires the least amount of work). I remember saying that the old age and death thing was going to (ironically) kill the game and it would definitely make the streamers all stop playing. The latter have for the most part all already left official so that 'test' was never reached. But them leaving 'early' isnt a positive either I dont think. In the end it is sort of a 'cool' idea and most people were cheering it (I remember because I said it was a stark contrast to basically the same thing Chronicles of Elyria was suggesting that got bashed, granted they were charging for 'new' lifes but same concept). Thyere just lazy developers but I am sure once they release the mod kid some m odder will make everything they have in their game better and they can steal errr 'improve' those things then add them to the official game (just the same way they did in ARK). best features of Ark are player/community/mod created and simply plugged in to the 'official' builds.
  4. EA isnt the excuse for everything. ARK was massive (once people heard about it) but the performance and optimization for that game was horrendous (especially for PCs that werent mid to higher end). It still isnt that well optimized but its obviously better after 3 or 4 years. So to think the makers of that game (with the same jaded people good and bad) couldnt sell a couple hundred thousand copies of an MMO (the first MMO in forever that was made by a developer with any sort of qualifications) is pretty naive. As I said I thought they would sell 200 maybe 250K copies. I dont think they sold 100K, and if they did I think a thousand or more refunded due to the issues. Its an MMO and it released GLOBALLY simultaneously. Meaning anyone anywhere could buy it you didnt have to wait for some trash Korean game to be 'westernized'. They also put it immediately 5 bucks off. Which for some people is a big deal and a 30 dollar game for 25 is worth it just to have in the library. People also dont understand that EA also means 'playable' and during most games who have this sell just about all the copies theyre going to. I highly doubt that when ARK 'officially' released the numbers suddenly ballooned. In fact I think they got lower. Even with 'new' content and 'new' servers. So launch day was a disaster the new update in Oct saw a much larger spike in population and the expansion this past Nov saw pops double and they reached the highest numbers they have ever seen (for a very short time).
  5. Elder Scrolls Online is the only game in recent times to have more players playing post launch than at launch.
  6. People STILL citing EVE. guess what when Eve FIRST came out the numbers were shit. They didnt have 20K people playing it. But they made positive changes and the numbers grew then more and more people got multiple accounts. I think they peaked about a year before I stopped playing. Now theyre back down quite a bit again. But its still the same scenario multiple accounts making it look like a lot more people on. This game may have already peaked. We will see I guess. but right now in the current pattern the numbers are dropping each and every day more or less. Private servers are definitely helping and once the mod kit releases that could be a game changer in overall numbers too. But finding a private server that is big enough, has the right settings and isnt corrupt is going to be a severe challenge. But one might exist somewhere by then. But to these guys I dont think its about overall numbers anyway as long as they can keep the core streamers they have had playing it (after the 'bigger' streamers all left a couple weeks ago) they will be happy. I think as long as they can have 20-30K viewers a day watching theyre going to be happy.(right now there are 9200 people) Not sure of that line of thinking but it makes about as much sense as anything else does. Burke has left the official and is on an RP that might get him to play another couple weeks then he will be gone and he is the biggest streamer of this game even though he plays in the middle of the night (US) Mehdi is number 2 NA streamer right now he is staying on official but his overall viewer numbers are dropping as he continues to play this but he will still keep some crossover numbers which will help him tread water. Havent seen the Chinese streamer in a few days not sure if he is done or not but he is actually the number one guy overall (*when he is streaming).
  7. no kidding but when the launch numbers were a joke and this is a B2P game that old thought process isnt the same as when everyone played the first 30 days because the box price included the first 30 days for free. if the game was any good at all numbers would have probably gone up. They actually ptobably should have because they 'fixed' the biggest issue of the initial complaints...performance. More or less. People spreading out and going all around helped some but performance as a whole definitely got better. But I guess technically numbers did go up for the first week. They peaked at a little over 58K, since then the numbers have gone down and down and the closest they go to 50K (once they failed to reach that number) is 44130 since that spike they havent broken 40K. Now theyre barely getting above 30K. Tonight should be the biggest spike as there is a massive storm coming through the whole east half of the US and its a Saturday. sitting at about 500 less than the 24 hour peak right now at barely over 30K. Last Sat and Sun did much better than Fri, that was the 44130 I mentioned above.
  8. Its OK to white knight something but when you become so one sided (completely ignoring 'evidence thats easy to see') it makes you lose any and all credibility on just about everything you comment on. Its one thing when the 'haters' say stupid stuff most of their concerns (that arent 99% of their postings) are generally legit. But white knights (especially ones like you) who defend and excuse every (bad) move or design the game has are worse. Game has been hemorrhaging players for two weeks. Its loses players from all areas and cross sections by the looks. With 4 official servers and about a thousand private servers it barely got more than 30K people online last night (a weekend) last Friday they had almost 40. Sat and Sun were quite a bit higher so maybe tonight and tomorrow will see similar gains. If they dont then its very obvious whats going on. As far as 'explore some' What are there 8 or 9 different island shapes? Once you have seen those youve seen them all. A couple streamers took maybe 10-12 hours of naked running to collect all the power stones. Not sure if they can be used or not but they got them. Ships can be built in a day with just a few people. So playability (beyond a horribly broken PvP option) is non existent. Other than I guess RP which again will be the major draw of this game just as it was with ARK. Thats why they continue to cater to the streamers. Which I guess for a game like this that was an ARK DLC in its origin is good enough. Problem is (ironically) it probably would have sold more copies had they kept it an ARK DLC.
  9. So its basically that bad sy fy TV movie (2 part I think maybe 3) that came out a few years ago where Earth is dead and everyone goes to the giant water planet when theyre resurrected? Riverworld I think it was.... Where is Mark Twain?
  10. Problem with a lot of these theories is the game never got above 60K so there was never even a 'burst' of players. There were probably a thousand or so refunds (despite the mass bombing on Steam) which is still a very high number. Game peaked at 58K and change and hasnt broken 50K in 2 weeks. Low end numbers have also tanked. SO people from all time zones have left it. But I dont think this game sold 100K copies if it did it wasnt many more. For an MMO (EA or not) is laughable. Especially one that has been bought and promoted so much on twitch. And where over 200K people were watching various streamers on the night it was supposed to originally launch. Now most of those streamers (who have played through worse) are citing stuff thats been going on since launch as to why theyre now suddenly going to private servers and abandoning officials. I suspect thats no coincidence and their 'contracts' are up and theyre just looking to finish them out or make it seem like theyre not getting paid. But its another example of decent ideas horrible implementation and horrible changes. People knew though. But with Wildcard being in the mix thats no great feat. I suppose if someone had a full sized map and a few thousand people who were consistent it could come close to the potential that movie they called in game footage promised. But right now its a broken mess thats getting hacked and exploited all over the place. I told people who thought Battle Eye was going to 'fix' things wouldnt. If anything its gotten worse.
  11. All about perspective I guess. You have different people with the same 'environments' but each one has differing reasons as to who or why not do something. Which might sound like 'wow a lot of decisions and choices to make'. But not really. There are only 2. To fight or not to fight. There may be differing reason on how to decide those two choices but those also come down to a couple options 'not worth it' or 'we do it but not for any sort of gain'. Which both have the same base reason...'stuff' in the game is simply way to easy to obtain and keep. Which I guess is OK but not when the (assumed) reason to make stuff easy tro get is so that when you lose it you can recoup pretty quickly. Might be why they have 'broken' land claiming. To encourage sea fights where people lose ships. Lose a ship? No big deal go back and build a dozen more in a couple hours. So there are conflicting mindsets here. Stuff is easy because its 'supposed' to be lost. Especially ships and armor and materials. Land has become nearly impossible to take even with offline raiding because they want people to have 'safe spaces' to be able to rebuild themselves to continue a fight. "Growing'' isnt even necessary at this point. I suspect the mega groups have already lost a third or more of their overall playerbase as it is. So the old excuses have stopped being good reasons. But it also adds to one of the bigger reasons why people arent playing the game anymore. As for the other comments about how 'disorganized and 'wasteful' most big companies are....that itself is an indictment of them in general and why there should be a limit on the number of people that companies and alliances can have. Its a population war where the only reason people do it is because the other guy can. Deescalate the need for mass amounts of people and the game in general gets a whole lot better. Imagine 5 or 6 well organized and functioning groups owning the same amount of ships and territory as a SINGLE (apparently unorganized) company does now. Which scenario has the greatest potential for 'spontaneous' interaction or gameplay? And if those mega groups ARE broken up then that also opens up possibilities for others who are either not playing or playing somewhere else or who got tired of being run over and didnt want to ally or merge to return. So now you go from one mega tribe dominating mass sectors of the overall map to potentially 7 or 9 smaller companies (with more people overall) playing the game and having differing agendas and goals. So all this 'sandbox content' becomes 8 or 9 times more likely to happen. Which shoul dby anyones standards make the game as a whole alot more 'fun' to play. But like I said its a mindset. No matter how easy you make things or how excessive stuff is able to be owned people still dont like 'losing' it, and thats why games whose content is based with 'losing' and 'rebuilding' fail. And before people start citing Eve...yeah thats just it EvE ALREADY exists. So why 'invest' in another game that does it worse with worse everything after you have spent years in Eve getting to where youre at? Thats even if I believe Eve is all that. (which it isnt I played it for a decade). People can make all the excuses for Atlas on any level they want but its fundamentally flawed. But right now it appeals to their target audience which is the streamers who can pretend its something it isnt. But if they decide to want more from it theyre going to have to make sweeping changes. Which dont include some of the dumb things they have already done. When the 'downtime' numbers are getting lower and the 'primetime' numbers are getting lower its not easy to see the game is losing a lot of players. Again people can make all the excuses they want but with a thousand or more private servers (people are paying out of pocket for) and the 4 official servers those numbers are pathetic. Especially since the overall play ability due to performance are much better than they initially were. But thats another topic. But I think related to this one in a lot of ways.
  12. battle eye doesnt work its something for them to use to make people think theyre trying....
  13. LMAO typical response from people without any other argument. Only "pvp' I see is offline nonsense of guys spending 30 hrs trying to kill enough beds to have a claim flag stick so they can start mortaring shit. The 5 and a half hour claim timer completely ruined land raiding and claim raiding. It was bad enough when it was 30 minutes and guys could run through naked for a split second and reset everything. Not saying that either is good or bad just that the whole system is complete garbage and the changes they have made actually made it worse (on both side if thats even possible). As for 'sandbox'. Not really its the bastardized example of what lazy ass developers have trained people to think is 'sandbox'. Either way there hasnt been one yet that has been any good or had a chance to be anything good so I doubt this one breaks that tradition, not with the way it has started out and the changes they have thus far made. Open world full loot PvP does not and never will work. Even with the garbage way this game tries to do it. Without safe zones somewhere it has even less of a chance. I would really love to know the actual numbers on the official PvP server. I cant imagine its too many even the mega tribes that have a couple companies maxed out arent getting 100 people online between the two or three groups they have. Other 400 pop companies are getting maybe 25-40 people online now. SO many people have stopped even since the update that 'fixed' company hierarchy and guys felt safe recruiting mass amounts of people again. What was that a week ago? Like I said more than likely the 'problem' will fix itself. But even so the claim changes they made have definitely benefited the people who already onw stuff and who have even a single person who can log in and make sure they stop any claims from being made against them.
  14. Wiat until they release the mod kits I am sure there will be something added. At this point the mod kit is going to have to be the savior of this game. That and some well established or trustworthy entity starting a sub based server that can hold a few thousand people. Because I am pretty sure that if you build it they will come. Hopefully someone is looking into that and are simply waiting for the mod kit to release to see just what they can do to a private server and if they could have one good enough people would be willing to pay to play on. Of course that also depends on if someone could even do that (charge a sub fee to play on a private server). I odnt see why not but these are crazy times we live in and we dont even own things we buy....
  15. People defending how awesome the game is and saying how its doing things 'right' Then all admitting theyre playing on tweaked unofficial servers. Its always about perspective like I said. The severe limitations of Atlas as opposed to ARK are the unofficial servers are all different 'maps'. And no one (that I know of) is running a full sized Atlas map anywhere. Biggest I have seen was 15x15 and I think that one is gone already. But the inherent cost of these servers as well as the amount of people necessary to make them play 'right' are both fairly large. In the end if the game was as crazy fun and entertaining as people (fans) think someone or a group of someones could have created a sub server somewhere that charges 99 cents or a buck 99 for people to log on to a full sized map and experience the game the way the developers wanted it to be experienced. Of course that would be hyperbole. But they could make a map that had a little bit of everything. But mostly protection from the psychos open games like this attract (whom eventually kill it off). Seems like there are plenty of people who 'like' the game they just dont like the community or the mechanics that allow certain aspect of the community to do certain things. Basically the fans are saying is if someone ran the game 'better' than wildcard it would be the best game ever. Not true but it would certainly be more appealing than it is now. But of course all the pro 'subscriber' people are never really willing to pay anything when it comes right down to it. Even though this game is a poster child for what a sub based server could be compared to an official B2P server that has every negative connotation anyone can throw at it, especially the PvP one.
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