Rust's Very nice looking competition: ARK Survival Evolved - Games

That trailer didn't fool me like it did some of you.

It sounds good, and I wish them good luck. More games trying out new things is always a good thing. Let's see what they actually release and if they keep up with their promises. The fire-breathing dragon versus the T-Rexes screenshot made me laugh.

[QUOTE=Zipper Bear;47723989]Who are these guys though? I've never heard of studio wildcard before, but they sound like they know what they're doing.[/QUOTE] Domain Name: STUDIOWILDCARD.COM Registrar: GODADDY.COM, LLC Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 146 Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com Referral URL: [url]http://registrar.godaddy.com[/url] Name Server: NS33.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Name Server: NS34.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Status: clientDeleteProhibited [url]http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited[/url] Status: clientRenewProhibited [url]http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited[/url] Status: clientTransferProhibited [url]http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited[/url] Status: clientUpdateProhibited [url]http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited[/url] Updated Date: 20-apr-2015 Creation Date: 17-oct-2014 Expiration Date: 17-oct-2016 Their website domain is new... I don't know much about this studio but they put other game development studio's practices to shame. The game looks polished and properly designed in terms of architecture. Reading through the FAQ on steam and other articles, they have looked at the big picture prior to development and addressed many inherent weakness in open survival multiplayer worlds. I will be picking this game up.

To be honest I find Rust to be more interesting in terms of a more unique look and setting. Rust has this scroungy, Mad Max vibe to it that I really dig. On the other hand ARK sounds like it has a whole bunch more to offer. The only problem here is we have had early access games that have promised a whole bunch of stuff before and never delivered. I say reserve all judgement for ARK until further game play is shown. Once June 2'nd has hit we can all decide which game is the more worthy investment.

[QUOTE=aouniat;47721369]Well the game has a lot more than Rust. ... devs who seem to be serious about the fps count[/QUOTE] Seriously? [QUOTE=benjiro;47722315]Creature taming ... They also talk about feeding your animals to grow them stronger etc[/QUOTE] The important question is, can I teach my T-Rex Hyper Beam? [QUOTE=benjiro;47722713]36km of land, 12km² of water, 48km² size. Under water base building. Massive underground cave systems under the entire island. Not bad ... The only disadvantage is that they are working with a fixed map and are planning on selling more maps as a expansion. So Rust has the advantage with the procedural generate maps. You do see with Rust how much time it costs to make one static maps with a lot of details. And the rust maps is smaller ( compared to the generate maps who are 16m² ( that includes all the water ) ).[/QUOTE] I hope you know that the Rust procedural map can be set to different sizes between 2x2 and 8x8, and it just currently defaults to 4x4km. There might be performance and terrain generator problems with larger maps right now, but it's already possible. And I expect that in the future Rust's map size cap will eventually increase so maps will be able to be even larger. I don't think anyone knows what a good limit will be yet, though, both for gameplay reasons and for performance limitations. [QUOTE=hatred;47725356]Their website domain is new... I don't know much about this studio but they put other game development studio's practices to shame. The game looks polished and properly designed in terms of architecture. Reading through the FAQ on steam and other articles, they have looked at the big picture prior to development and addressed many inherent weakness in open survival multiplayer worlds. I will be picking this game up.[/QUOTE] Words are cheap and screenshots even cheaper; remember [del]The War Z[/del]trademark denied, aka Infestation: Sergey Stories. The pitch sounded good and the screenshots looked great...and also completely impossible to replicate in-game. Interesting to see what they actually release and how close the public builds match up to the store. But, again, as I said, I wish the devs luck and I hope it works out for them. More good games in a genre never hurt anyone except for the imitators who slap together an uninspired bug-infested clone of the hot shit of the day to make a quick buck (looking at you, Garry's Incident).

[QUOTE=benjiro;47722713]30 in game creatures already with 70 planned... there little Dossier is also fun / interesting: [url]http://playark.com/Dossier_Brontosaurus_HD.jpg[/url] [url]http://playark.com/Dossier_Stegosaurus_HD.jpg[/url] [url]http://playark.com/Dossier_Dodo_HD.jpg[/url] [url]http://playark.com/Dossier_Mammoth_HD.jpg[/url] [url]http://playark.com/Dossier_Megalodon_HD.jpg[/url] From the looks of it, it looks like its designed to fit in the map book ( when the person is exploring the cave ), that you see in the trailer. Well, they did develop this much content in just 7 months time. Lots of nice information with the interview: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=427&v=u0UbLtLdoCU[/url] 36km of land, 12km² of water, 48km² size. Under water base building. Massive underground cave systems under the entire island. Not bad ... The only disadvantage is that they are working with a fixed map and are planning on selling more maps as a expansion. So Rust has the advantage with the procedural generate maps. You do see with Rust how much time it costs to make one static maps with a lot of details. And the rust maps is smaller ( compared to the generate maps who are 16m² ( that includes all the water ) ). The 100 person goal seems to be a less then Rust current 200 max. But frankly ... the map size and play count do not properly scale in my eyes. The 16km² gets very fast build up with a lot of building, be it active or abandon on a server with 170 sleepers and at best 35 active players. Frankly, i find the map too small for more then two weeks up time between wipes. After two weeks the amount of structures is too massive on a semi popular server. Let alone on some of the bigger servers.[/QUOTE] If all those creatures are of the same quality as the ones in the trailer ill be really impressed.

[QUOTE=Zipper Bear;47723989]Who are these guys though? I've never heard of studio wildcard before, but they sound like they know what they're doing.[/QUOTE] A lot of the people working on this, including the head honcho are also responsible for Primal Carnage. So expect horrifyingly bad design decisions and outrageous drama followed by a crash and burn.

[QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;47727531]A lot of the people working on this, including the head honcho are also responsible for Primal Carnage. So expect horrifyingly bad design decisions and outrageous drama followed by a crash and burn.[/QUOTE] if the features on that list are actually there at EA launch, and there isnt any hge lag/sync issues I see this game going very far very fast

Whoa Finally a promising open world survival game? Sweet

[QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;47727531]A lot of the people working on this, including the head honcho are also responsible for Primal Carnage. So expect horrifyingly bad design decisions and outrageous drama followed by a crash and burn.[/QUOTE] This is kind of what I was expecting, but hopefully they prove us wrong!

Eh. I've already been burned too much by dinosaur themed survival games. I really don't want another Stomping Lands to happen... I'll wait for it to leave Early Access I think. See if the devs can manage to finish it. It's nice to see a game already aiming to use DX12 though. Game looks mighty impressive as well, but that's not to hard to achieve when you're using UE4.

Stomping Lands was one guy running the game into the ground. I've honestly heard too many horror stories about the people who are making this game to take it seriously.

Well ... only one way to know is to see how the game gets supported by the developers. They are very active answering questions from the community and seem to have a very worked out development plan. And frankly, if you build something ( from what we have seen ) in 7 months time, ... it makes me take them more seriously then some random posters on a forum yelling doom and gloom. With that attitude we just need to stop helping any early / independent game developers and just go back to the good old development style where EA and co, tell us what games we need to buy. Rust and so many other indi games will NOT have seen the day of light without people taking risks on those games. Will there be a few bad apples from time to time. Sure ... but don't go around burning projects to the ground based upon a one other game. You will always have bad apples, even among the premium games.

[QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;47728932]Stomping Lands was one guy running the game into the ground. I've honestly heard too many horror stories about the people who are making this game to take it seriously.[/QUOTE] What have you heard about the developers of this? What they've shown so far looks pretty good but it's a developer i haven't heard of before.

For those who don't know, the team is planning on adding procedural island generation in the future, but it isn't implemented yet/in the yet-to-be-released build. Taming also seems quite fun, as they mention you have to beat creatures to unconsciousness with your fists to start the taming process. Obviously, there are going to be more methods to knock out larger creatures like T-Rex/Mammoths/Brontosaurs, but I'm still going to fist-fight a T-Rex nonetheless.

It sucks because I really like open world sandbox survival games, but there are so many terrible ones mixed in the genre. Really I've only put serious time into Minecraft, 7 Days to Die, and Unturned. Reign of Kings has promise, but it feels wonky to me. Rust was okay for a bit, but there got to be sooo many shitlords and I don't have enough friends to play with just them. This looks great, will obviously buy and try it out!

[QUOTE=nightlord;47729171]What have you heard about the developers of this? What they've shown so far looks pretty good but it's a developer i haven't heard of before.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;47727531]A lot of the people working on this, including the head honcho are also responsible for Primal Carnage. So expect horrifyingly bad design decisions and outrageous drama followed by a crash and burn.[/QUOTE] Not sure what happened to Primal Carnage, and I've never even really heard of the game, but I'd figure I'd answer your question. Seems to be a new trend in Early Access games though. The former devs of Starforge dropped that after release with a lot of broken promises and are now working on Reign of Kings (again, don't really know the exact details, just what I've heard from others). And honestly, though I've already said I've been burned out by dino themed survival games, I think it's more survival games in general. There's just too many of them. The game market is just over-saturated with them as of late. Only Rust has held my attention because Garry and crew seem to be the only ones doing things right, while others essentially abandon the project or take ages to update it with relatively minor features.

[QUOTE=Rahu X;47729684]Not sure what happened to Primal Carnage, and I've never even really heard of the game, but I'd figure I'd answer your question. [/QUOTE] Primal Carnage devs got replaced by another team who then turned a rather big update into a complete new version of the game. They charged money for it, although customers of the first got a 85% discount on the new game. [QUOTE=RR_Raptor65;47728932]Stomping Lands was one guy running the game into the ground. I've honestly heard too many horror stories about the people who are making this game to take it seriously.[/QUOTE] Elaborate please.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;47730019]Primal Carnage devs got replaced by another team who then turned a rather big update into a complete new version of the game. They charged money for it, although customers of the first got a 85% discount on the new game.[/QUOTE] To clarify on that: The update started off as bug fixing and rebalancing, but then they wanted to totally overhaul the graphics, then the maps, then the gameplay, and then they were in desperate need of dosh and sold it as the entirely new game it had become at that point. I'll be watching this, but The Isle is the dino survival game of my heart right now. It's got all the cool Primal Carnage devs, plus one of the Stomping Lands modelers. Also it's the only survival game to be trying anything truly new right now, what with the mutations and playable dinos and whatnot.

[QUOTE=Rahu X;47729684]Not sure what happened to Primal Carnage, and I've never even really heard of the game, but I'd figure I'd answer your question. Seems to be a new trend in Early Access games though. The former devs of Starforge dropped that after release with a lot of broken promises and are now working on Reign of Kings (again, don't really know the exact details, just what I've heard from others). And honestly, though I've already said I've been burned out by dino themed survival games, I think it's more survival games in general. There's just too many of them. The game market is just over-saturated with them as of late. Only Rust has held my attention because Garry and crew seem to be the only ones doing things right, while others essentially abandon the project or take ages to update it with relatively minor features.[/QUOTE] I am fairly sure that people have plaid Trippe A titles where some or most of the developers may have had a less then reputable reputation. How many Tripple A titles have not been released in half unfinished state, to the point that people can not even finish the game properly without patching it up. There really is not much different between paying 40/50$ for a tripple A title and a indi developer taking 25$ and not properly releasing a game. The people who played Reign of Kings seems to find the game good. Its stable, has a lot of gameplay content etc ... To me it looks like the developers made too many promises regarding Starforge and the game as they promised was financially unattainable. With Reign of kinds they stayed under the radar until the announced it and granted access to it. You can say that they learned from there mistakes. But gamers will be gamers. Fool me one's ... i will always black talk your future games, even if they seems to have learned from there mistakes. ARK is just announced and some people are already black talking the game in advance. For me its more simple: If the gameplay they showed was REALLY from ingame gameplay that they montage together, it already shows a fairly big commitment from them. How many triple A games just fake with pre-generated footage? Star Wars Battlefront 3 with its pre-generated gameplay footage and half the features stripped from the previous titles was just recent addition. So lets give them a change to prove themselves. Early access is 02 June. That is 17 days from now. Lets some stupid people like me buy the early access and we shall see. If the game is unfinished or sucks, you can tell "told you so". And no offense but Garry and crew doing things right? They did dump legacy support out of nowhere and focused on the new experimental. I do not think that a lot of people planned for more then a year extra development because Garry wanted to redo the game mechanics. I do not blame him because i have been in development project where the code is horrible and you are better with a rewrite. But its still a massive setback. Only now the content is getting closer to that of legacy. --------------------------------------- Now to be ontopic: Facebook page: [url]https://www.facebook.com/survivetheark[/url] Reddit: [url]http://www.reddit.com/r/playark[/url] Creatures in game, confirmed and planned: CURRENT TOTAL: 32 confirmed CURRENTLY INGAME: 16 as we know of DEVS TARGET AMOUNT CREATURES: +70 NUMBER OF ANIMALS LEFT TO BE CONFIRMED/ANNOUNCED: 38 DINOSAURS : Hadrosaurs ( confirmed ) brontosaurs ( Ingame ) stegasaurs ( Ingame ) Trex ( Ingame ) Utahraptors ( Ingame ) triceratops ( Ingame ) Pteranadons ( Ingame ) anklyosaurs ( Ingame ) parasaurolophus ( Ingame ) spinosaurus ( Confirmed ) Pachycephlasaurus ( Confirmed ) Iguanadons ( Confirmed ) Carnotaurus ( Half Confirmed ) REPTILES: Titanoboa ( Ingame ) plesiosaur ( Confirmed ) mososaurus ( Confirmed ) Deinosuchus ( Ingame ) INVERTEBRATES : Giant scorpians ( Ingame ) Giant land and sea snails ( Confirmed ) Giant ants ( Confirmed ) Giant dragonflies ( Confirmed ) Giant and very giant spiders(2 species confirmed) ( Ingame ) Giant crabs ( Confirmed ) (possibly more) MAMMALS: Mammoths ( Ingame ) Saber tooth tigers ( Ingame ) ground sloths ( Confirmed ) Gorgonopsid ( Confirmed ) BIRDS: Dodo ( Ingame ) FISH: Megalodon ( Ingame ) Coelocanths ( Ingame ) Dunkleosteus ( Confirmed ) MYTHOLOGICAL ANIMALS: Dragons ( Ingame ) ----------------------------- There is also way more info posted on several of the sites directly from the developers as to what is ingame currently, what is planned and what they are considering.

The game looks good, I'll probably buy it day one if I don't have anything else I'm currently playing. If the devs do anything like the stomping land or miscreated, then rip $25.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;47730019]Primal Carnage devs got replaced by another team who then turned a rather big update into a complete new version of the game. They charged money for it, although customers of the first got a 85% discount on the new game.[/QUOTE] Pretty much all Lukewarm Media did was change their name, with the exception of the people who left or were booted out, like the head of Lukewarm Media, who is now leading development of ARK which is terrifying in an of itself. So at least a few of the people working on ARK are just the people who couldn't cut it at Lukewarm/Circle 5. [QUOTE=Antimuffin;47730019]Elaborate please.[/QUOTE] One of the biggest things I recall is they had a habit of not listening to their internal QA team on gameplay issues, especially those regarding balance, if you've played Primal Carnage it really shows. The amount of in-fighting made the Trespasser team at Dreamworks look friendly too. Their development process and just the way they did things is pretty much a prime example of how not to develop a video game or run a company. All I'm saying is be VERY wary of these guys, make them prove that they can pull this off, but I wouldn't be surprised if the game ends up with serious issues if they don't also have a complete meltdown along the way.

From what I've seen so far the developers seem very dedicated to this game and the community. They even acknowledge the problems with most survival games and the early access system. Plus they seem to be constantly answering important questions [I]and[/I] they provide detailed pages on the dinosaurs in the game. The biggest problem that I can see though is that this seems almost too good to be true. I hope I'm wrong though, this is the survival game that early access needs if it wants to be taken seriously.

In regards to the developers: [url]http://www.arkbulletin.com/news/2015/5/15/daily-update-15-may-2015[/url] "As mentioned elsewhere, Wildcard has a development of over 40 people." That explains why there where able to push so much content into the preview video in such a short time. And from all the Q&A they have been giving the last few days, it seems fairly sure that they have a strong vision for the development. It was also expressed during a interview where they focus upon. ----------------------- Check out the link [url]http://www.arkbulletin.com/[/url] for the bulletin... for a lot more Q&A... [editline]16th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=jimbobjoe1234;47734027]From what I've seen so far the developers seem very dedicated to this game and the community. They even acknowledge the problems with most survival games and the early access system. Plus they seem to be constantly answering important questions [I]and[/I] they provide detailed pages on the dinosaurs in the game. [/QUOTE] Indeed ... I can understand if a game is just a few building blocks and the developers go for early access / beta selling, that people doubt. But IF the content they show is really from the ingame engine, i can only question why will any developer that is so far along with there assets then bother releasing to rip people off. The example people gave before from failed projects came down to: * A small development team of two, where the main developer vanished. That is always the risk with smaller development team, nobody left to pick over. * Over promising and not able to deliver. And the developers then made Reign of Kinds in silence learning from there mistakes. Frankly, Rust technically almost has gone down the same road. Legacy was so over complicated and relied so much on 3th party code to finish the first draft, that they where forced to redesign the game. The amount of time that they are now spending answering all the Q&A, all the media focus they are doing ( twitter, reddit, website, steam etc etc ). It feels very professional. Not like some kind of amateur small group. So far i have seen 4 developers answering questions on the Steam forum and there answers seem fair. If they know, you get a detailed answer how something works, if they have plans they say they have something planned and if its something they did not plan for, they flat out say so that they will look into it ( when its interesting ) but they make no promises. Sound very "normal". [QUOTE=jimbobjoe1234;47734027] The biggest problem that I can see though is that this seems almost too good to be true. I hope I'm wrong though, this is the survival game that early access needs if it wants to be taken seriously.[/QUOTE] On a side note: One of the people involved with the project is Gareth Coker ( music composer ). So also not a totally unknown name. One interesting thing is, if you look at the pictures / screenshots released, you can tell that there are higher quality assets and lower one's. The single shot rifle that fires is somewhat lower quality then for instance the hatchet ( can also be the lack of lighting in that scene ). The Dino that attacks its AI seems to be unfinished ( its attack does not match the creature style ). Anyway ... two weeks and two days and we know for 100% ...

Either way, I'm cautiously hyped for this.

According to the devs dinosaurs will come in a variety of colors. Some colors are apparently rarer than others, and the rarer the color the higher the level of dinosaur. Interesting stuff to say the least. Also it looks like dinosaurs can be shared in clans. Might prove to be a bit problematic in the future if someone in the clan turns on you.

[QUOTE=jimbobjoe1234;47736323]According to the devs dinosaurs will come in a variety of colors. Some colors are apparently rarer than others, and the rarer the color the higher the level of dinosaur. Interesting stuff to say the least. Also it looks like dinosaurs can be shared in clans. Might prove to be a bit problematic in the future if someone in the clan turns on you.[/QUOTE] They also mentioned that they might want to do different sizes but at the moment its not implemented. Speaking of colors, it seems you can paint your clothing with specific colors ( using ingredients from nature ). So more variety for clans / tribes to have there own specific colors. Unlike Rust where you have only a few combinations possible ( and what results in a lot of confusion during active raids ).

If they leave their monetizing at selling DLC maps, that would be fine. If they start making it pay to win or for better gear, then all respect is lost right off the bat. I kind of like the PvE aspect that this game gives off. I just hope that there's a steadily increasing challenge and you aren't just guaranteed to survive if you have x items. The graphics look wonderful, but most would probably prefer solid gameplay over realistic graphics.

Some little tidbit of info: Direct X12: "Yes it will increase performance on the order of 33%. We will roll out the DX12 update in July, so get your Windows 10 installs ready then!"...

Some more info from [url]www.arkbulletin.com[/url]... The more info that comes out, the more the game has extreme similarities with Rust but almost like its Rust 2.0... Some silly examples that i noticed: 1. Rust: You die, you can respawn at random or in a sleeping bag. Disadvantage is that people start to "misuse" the sleeping bag as a hidden spawn point. Its easy to hide. ARK: You die, you can respawn at random or in a sleeping bag or in a bed. Now comes the difference: Sleeping bags are one time use spawns. While beds are permanent spawns ( like the sleeping bags in Rust ). Its not clear if beds can only be placed in bases but we need to assume so... This makes it harder to people to misuse the sleeping bags outside in the wild as a permanent spawn point ( like rad town sleeping bags ) as they need to constantly place new sleeping bags = the need to crafting resources. 2. Insulation rating ... Rust & ARK share similar designs with food/water/body heat designs. But ARK trows in Stamina = Actions ( running, jumping etc ) = The more you use your stamina the more you burn food/water. I remember reading that if your wet, you also burn more stamina / calories ( not sure about the source on that one ). But ... they also have insulation rating. Now bases in Rust are just wall that protect you from people but offers no real protection from the elements. ARK home / bases are there to not only protect you from people and dino's but also give you insulation rating. If your base has a hole in it and its cold outside ... well ... you can figure it out. 3. Weapon attachments are indeed in. You can craft them or use those from other people. 4. Blueprints are physical it seems. Engrams are what the current "BP's" in Rust are. So a Engram what is more rare, will stay with your body even if you die. Blueprints do not. Its not 100% but i assume that blueprints can be stolen. 5. Automated defenses! You can install automated weapon system to defend your base but ... they require ammo and electricity. In other words, unlike in Rust where any defenses are passive and raiders can take there time looking around your base when your off-line, its a different matter in ARK. In my eyes it opens up the possibility to not only add external defense but also internal. 6. Modding!!! Yes, read it again. No special layer is needed. People will have access to the same development tools that the ARK developers use: "Modders will have access day 1 to our entirely functional (100% exactly the same as ours) custom copy of the Unreal 4 Editor including all of our assets and everything else about the game to do whatever you want with. " The list goes on ... in my experience from reading all the developers comments so far, it indicates that they have a good plan going forward. They seems to take elements from Rust, Reign of Kings, 7days to die, etc and combine that / enhance them. Looking forward to 2 June.