Kveldulf

Ok. But do you think they should maybe listen to people who have actually experienced the system/mechanic you summarily want to just remove entirely? A survival aspect will not stop the kinds of player institutions you want to see. Not in the least. It's just not that drastic. It's not going to stifle social evolution. On the contrary, the institutionally minded players you want to focus on will organize far beyond the trifle of basic survival. It's a good mechanic for small bands of explorers to contend with, for lone wolves to conquer. It doesn't need removal, at all. On the contrary. It may well prove a catalyst for what you want to see, in some situations. Regarding the numbers. You were in here a mere few hours after patch launched with doomsday numbers. Big picture doesn't mean you take a myopic outlook and make it bigger. That's still myopic, just with thicker glasses.

How does it determine how many people you have? Meaning, I build a house, a dock, animal pen, etc. but sleep on my boat while traveling and offline... am I still considered part of that island? Can I belong to two, or three islands if I have settlements in several places? Am I only part of the island when actively on it? (ie. online or sleeping offline but on the island) What if I'm just a member of the company that owns the island, do I count to extend the timer? Or, do I need to be my own company for it to help?

I can see that some pvp players wouldn't care about a wipe. Whether you lose everything while you sleep to a dev or a player, what's the difference? Someone annoyed by offline raiding can't really spend that much time playing pvp in these types of games, so it would make sense that one wouldn't be bothered by randomly losing everything. PvP players don't care about animals? Why bother noticing the lack of balance then? I do not think it means what you think it means. I also don't think PvE players want unbalanced systems, pvp, pve, or otherwise. Mind you, I do like it when a game I play has horses that are fun to ride and it's not about getting an upper-hand so you may have a point. Somewhat. Cosmetics and FoY... you mean you think the trouble with the FoY is that it makes us look old? Nah. ) The trouble is the lack of thought that went into the design of what is essentially a PvE system. Long, long ago, devs used to make games harder not by improving the ai, but by giving npc perfect aim. They couldn't really do better at the time. That's the course the dev in charge of the FoY took here. MOAR beasties! isn't exactly creative or interesting. That's the trouble with the FoY, not the cosmetic effect.

I believe some foods maintain vitamins longer than others. It's a balancing act, for sure. For people who have trouble because their hunger is going down faster than they can spend vitamins... more stamina helps. Hunger goes down when recovering chunks of stamina. The more stamina, the less hunger overall. Also works the other way. I was going through vitamins pretty quickly, the foods I eat don't take long to digest. I went with less stamina so I'm hungry more often and can more finely tune my vitamin intake based on what's readily and easily available. There is way more than one way to approach all this. Different players, different strategies. Having said that, I'm not at all against tweaking these systems. By all means, that's why we're in early access providing feedback. What I object to, and strongly at that, is people who want to get rid of the system because they couldn't figure it out, or more likely because they didn't want to take the time to figure it out and just want to pew pew. I want more from my games than pew pew.

Let's not make this a game for 5-year-olds the way Sony handled SWG. There are plenty of other games that are stupefyingly simplistic. The fact that Atlas does not aspire to be one of them is refreshing. As Jack Shandy pointed out, the food situation is absolutely manageable. Milk helps, the order in which you eat makes a difference. When to add fruit makes a difference. Pay attention to the system rather than just stuffing your face or forgetting you need to think ahead a little bit. You're going out to sea, so you have to plan a little. As it should be. There is no way this should become some brain-dead arcade game. Nope, nope, nope. Temperature? You want to remove it? No. No way. Tweak it so it makes a bit more sense? Absolutely. Can't be bothered to think ahead about what you're gonna need on your trip? Die. If you want to play a game that requires no brainpower at all, plenty of them out there. Better yet, get two cups, fill one with water, transfer the water back and forth. You can go ooh, and ahh, as you do so. It's great fun, and a freakin' monkey could do it. Enjoy.

Just saying it's a question of timing. Right at this moment, if they promote it and people come check it out... they'll see a server full of taken land, ghost ships everywhere, with a wipe coming any day now and a patch that hasn't even been tested yet. Imagine you buy a horribly broken down house with the intention of fixing it up, making it great, and then flipping it for a great profit. Wouldn't you want to finish the work before you put the house on the market? Otherwise, people who come to your house are going to say "wow, this is awful, what were you thinking?" Or, they'll say "well, good luck, call us if you ever manage to do this." etc. There'll be time for promotion, absolutely, I'm just saying right now isn't it.

Where is the disregard for the players, exactly? You need your hand held more than it already has been? You say they need more numbers to "stay afloat..." You do realize that once someone has bought the game, their financial contribution is over, right? Current numbers are irrelevant. Everybody knows they are reworking things, and everybody is busy doing other things until the devs are ready to go. What's so hard to understand about that? I honestly don't give two sh*ts about anyone's experience with Ark. Enough about Ark. People can't even get their story straight. "It was horrible!" "They never lost numbers!" So which is it? Ok. And you really think this moment is the best time to be promoting Atlas? Really? You don't think, maybe, oh I don't know, hold off promoting until after PTR, after wipe and new systems are good and stable? Good G*d people, get a hobby for a little while. Advance your careers before you get sucked back into the game again. Catch up with old friends. Take the dog out. When there's news, we'll get news.

what about the sea storms? Also, I'm not sure I'd love to see all kinds of bases out in the ocean. I prefer it as vast, open, free from player clutter which is likely what would happen. The open seas just wouldn't be quite open anymore.

If you spend hundreds of hours, I think you'll be fine. The window for the landlord to destroy something will be 12hours, or a bit more, but not days. At least that's what I last understood unless they've changed it. I'm hoping tax payers will get something for the taxes we pay. We'll see when it's released I guess.

Well yeah Landlords aren't the only ones that can have a negative impact on other players, but they do have the most long-term power to affect others on that island. Not sure what happens if an island is just never claimed. Who gets the 12+hour window to destroy pillars, or anything else? What if a claim is made after things are already built on the island? Could a landlord share island admin rights? There's no alliances, but could there be a permission system? Things that are placed are still identified in the database as being owned by a particular company. There's potential for programming permissions in there right? Island caretakers, Island defenders, Island citizens, Island criminals? Having a system in place of some kind does open the window for that system to be improved. It still seems better than no system present to be improved. Or... I'm wrong and the whole thing goes to hell in a hand-basket. If there's anything I've learned over the years it's that hell in a hand-basket is always a risk.

Yeah... Pretty certain I wouldn't have the time to be an overlord/landlord/mayor. However, if I did have the time, I know the kind of benevolent shepherd I'd love to be. My hope is the people who would be awful to others won't be able to sustain holding a large island. A tiny one, maybe. I think with the system they're suggesting/planning, they'd have the ability to play with the numbers (upkeep, etc) and punish anyone who wouldn't have the social skills to hang on to tenants. SWG had a mayor system of some sorts where the current leader could actually be deposed if need be. Been a long time so hard to remember the specifics, but I think having a system in place that allows them to have some control over the playerbase is better than not having anything and making it all lawless. just mho.

Primary problem with the system as it stands is the tenant has no predefined, tangible benefit in return for the taxes paid. The sandbox might make up for that, but only if the pain to motivate landlords exists. "but... but you get to build on MY island!" No. That's not the appropriate benefit. The tenants paying taxes are providing a service to the landlord, but receiving nothing in terms of services in return, so far. I had suggested having the pvp system on pve BUT with the inclusion of a benefit to tenants. Like maybe protection from PvE raids (ghost pirates), some PvE component that replaces the human component of PvP. To me, that's what's missing here. There is no benefit to the tenants and there needs to be. I might be willing to pay 30%, does it include healthcare? Let's not forget this is a work in progress. Including the PvP style claims in PvE does leave open the window for it to be fleshed out in the future. I think it has potential. There is also a sandbox aspect to this so we'll see what landlords can come up with to entice tenants to come and help with their upkeep. The upkeep needs to be substantial. The landlord must see value in their tenants. No tenants? No island for you. There are tons of places I can take my taxes. You want to play landlord? Cool. Make it worth it to your tenants. That HAS to be part of this. The cost to the landlord should be such that they're begging tenants to come live on their island.

You do realize the npc know where you sleep, and they never go offline... I would take this discussion offline if I were you.

How bout letting all animals go through the "small" gates? Seems plenty large enough to me. Requiring the large gate for elephants and such just seems over the top. Thoughts?

My first thought was I'd rather shit on time personally. I think I might have been a little too literal on that though.

Save some of that vacation time for the summer so you have time to buttress your roof before next winter! (or to pack the Uhaul for warmer pastures) If my colleague wants to take vacation to go get a sunburn on a beach, or to go to the opening game for his favorite team, more power to them. Hope they come back refreshed and ready to rock. If I or you want to use that time to chill in a virtual world... so be it. I'd agree a "sick day" is in poor taste though, and also agree my money's on it dropping late. I don't even mean to insult the devs by saying that, drop it when you're good with it. Just as Boomer said though, track record being what it is...

May not really be worthy enough but here's a couple thoughts... The Fine that has lower requirements than Journeyman but is numerically equal is indeed clearly better. However, if all I have found in my travels is the Journeyman, with its higher requirements but still better than any base model, I'd rather have the Journeyman than nothing. It increases the value of the Fine without necessarily always having increases in value be numerical in nature. Perhaps in the future a bonus could be ascribed to using only blueprints of a certain denomination? The Journeyman may be inferior in direct comparison due to higher materials list, but when combined with other items from Journeyman BP's, the bonus imparted by the whole makes up for the extra materials needed. Generally, I think variety and choice is always good. Sweeping generalization I know, but let's say I have a wide trade network and having the extra mats means nothing to me. Easy as pie... perhaps at that point I'd rather purchase the cheaper blueprint. I think the fact that it isn't linear makes it more interesting in the long run. Just my 0.02

Well that's part of the problem though. If they offer up details of the system they've worked out for PvP, why not offer the same type of detailed, enthusiastic explanation for PvE? I liked the explanation given by the dev folk in the stream. They sounded excited about it, they were making sense, I'm buying into what they're selling. No guarantee it works as planned, never is, but I can dig the effort. PvE? We're removing flags, adding upkeep, see? I'm not against the wipe, and I know whatever they explain will be met with derision, but not by everyone. Happy to give it a chance, I just really don't know what IT is at the moment.

Yeah, no doubt. To a certain extent it becomes a question of how much pain in the backside is really worth it? I'd hate to just throw up my hands and figure we're doomed though. Again, hopefully they have a plan of some sorts that I don't know about yet.

They seem to be saying upkeep will take care of this? What I'm imagining is something like a lone foundation would poof ridiculously fast, or maybe have no aura itself at all. I'm sure there are ways they can use what they're introducing to combat this at least a little bit. It's not like this isn't foreseeable. Hopefully my faith isn't misplaced but I'm (extremely) cautiously optimistic they've given this more than a fleeting thought.

For official, move to the new. If they left an old one, it'd be an old development branch and no longer really supported. Would rather experience the rest of the game as they release it. For unofficial, honestly I can't imagine unofficial isn't going to wipe for the new dev branch as well. Trying to build the new over the old foundation is just begging for a giant mess of spaghetti code and random bugs. Them's the breaks. I'll rebuild better than before.

We didn't actually buy the game though. Technically, we paid to access their game prior to release. It's not even fine print, it's always pretty clearly marked on Steam when buying early access. The game is not finished, it's all open to change as completely as they'd like. Just look at Rust. The whole premise of the game is different than when I bought into it, and it's probably changed even more since I last mistakenly logged in. We paid to access the game while in development. One would hope the people writing game reviews are seasoned enough to understand that. It's just a hope though, a welcomed surprise if I find just one article pointing that out. Kinda cute, in an inexperienced fail prone kind of way. It's just so basic. Oh well.

Looked at the thread and not entirely sure what I'm looking at, to be honest. I do think a community manager mirroring the behavior of the community he/she is managing isn't necessarily unprofessional. It's not really a job I could do in that manner, but to some degree one could argue a community manager should be using the vernacular of the community he manages. "One of us" kind of deal. I haven't personally ever seen Jatheish taking liberties with his position. What I find most offensive from a community manager is when they usurp or circumvent the devs, raising their own station beyond where it should be. Jatheish doesn't seem to do that, and I appreciate that. If he occasionally has to go below his station in life for the sake of community communication... more power to him for being willing to go there. As for the OP... I do have a theory. Was the child insulted related to you in some way? Are you defending a grandchild, a nephew, a niece? Would be totally understandable and if someone insulted a kid I care about, I'd break out the double headed axe immediately as well. However, I think it's just as important to take a step back and go over what happened with the child in question. Sometimes, we take things too far and and have to accept our own role in how we're treated... wouldn't you agree? Hope everyone is able to let it go, maybe even learn something but, at the very least, get back to having fun. I'm building a schooner to explore more of the world before the coming apocalypse. What are you working on for fun? EDIT: Again, to the op, if you're defending a child in your life, I completely understand. You first neutralize the threat by whatever means necessary, with prejudice, then you go back and figure out what happened. I wouldn't hesitate to take a flamethrower to the place and ask questions later.

I think part of the reason the PvE community is complaining is the difference in explanations of coming changes during the stream. What they said about the changes to PvP sounded well thought out. It was coherent and, while not a guarantee that it'll work as they think, it's definitely worth finding out . It could be really interesting. They've obviously had some very productive brainstorming sessions. Awesome. Then you get to the description of changes to PvE... There really wasn't a whole lot there, was there? Maybe they'll get back to it later but right now it seems like there were no brainstorming sessions for this side of the game. There was no coherent framework explained as there was for PvP changes. Might work out just fine, but adding upkeep and calling it a day doesn't really inspire that much confidence. I do think the PvP changes coming sound intriguing though and if their vision can become reality, it sure does have a lot of potential.

Wondering if the 1 week they're planning to have this patch on PTR will be long enough for more than 1 iteration of feedback. The more potential for grief we can identify and report during PTR, hopefully the fewer opportunities for it on live!