ark-2

[formal hedge]

4202

[fresh wolf]

nah it will be late 2027 or maybe 2028

[surreal steeple]

If I'm still playing ark by the time ark 2 comes out maybe I'll buy it

I go through phases of playing games so quickly tho so idk if I will still be on lol

[rustic creek]

will ark 2 even be worth it? from what ive heard its more story based and souls like combat

[surreal steeple]

if its more soulslike than that would make the game sooo much more worth it for me lol

[rustic creek]

for me the only game i can get behind that is god of war with the "soulslike combat" but other than that idk the game dont strike me that much esp with that bald ahh vin diesel 😭 🥀

[jagged island]

Ark 2 will need three computers to run it

[true viper]

Jarvis, pull up his graphics card

[wanton pike]

With a Nvidia Rtx 129050 ti

[mint swan]

Why do you think Microsoft is developing those new super micro chips

[shell lintel]

Could be interesting

[wanton pike]

Ark 2 can only be run on a quantum computing powered pc

[hidden fractal]

Guys, i just got a private dm from wild card, i was sapost to ceep it a Secret, its the release time, 2984, at 11:29 am u.s. time ❤️ i can't wait

[tribal jay]

Real

[tribal jay]

Quantum chips not micro

[quartz spindle]

If I was wild card I would just kill it make the game great first launch 2 new maps a year, minimize events for the rest of the year and work through every bug and make anti meshing stronger

[blissful perch]

Guess I’m glad you aren’t wildcard. Ark 1’s design and mechanics are rapidly aging, and it’s time to see something new.

[quartz spindle]

Just keep evolving "Ark" yearly and expanding story line slowly implement new mechanics over time.. I don't understand the need for "Ark 2" when you can just keep upgrading and molding the current game..

[blissful perch]

1. the mechanics of ark 1 will limit future content by requiring it to be compatible with ark 1

2. there is bloat when you add content to a game that radically alters mechanics - and in some cases a lot of mechanics or features are straight up impossible without wiping people's data (and in ark, people are very attached to their tames/structures/etc)

3. there are old features that simply need to be retired, and the addition of new features over time is not the right way to phase them out. It's better to leave them as-is for people who enjoy the old way of playing so you can focus more wholeheartedly on something entirely new. Some of this is as simple as player expectations (for example, ASE -> ASA changed pathfinding so KO taming was a bit tougher, but people would likely be very unhappy if KO taming was removed wholesale in ark 1)

[untold ingot]

That's because you aren't any sort of dev 🤣

When I am given a decade old piece of software and told that they want a new look and major new features, it's often almost as easy to rewrite the whole thing as it is to append new functionality. Ase was a decade old piece of software written in massive part by amateurs turned pros and as such was a spaghetti code nightmare. Asa is a massive improvement on the codebase, but for a game company to keep going it needs to do more than dlc. It has to either massively go microtransactions or it has to make new games

[stray elm]

My man, the mechanics proposed for ARK-2 would piss off the people normalized with ARK-1's mechanics.
Both that, and money is why you make seperate products.

[old bone]

I think ark 2 its will coming out when half-life 3 will made(never)

[stray elm]

Actually, we have more evidence of Half-Life 3 coming out soonish then ARK-2.

Which is, a weird reality of a timeline we live in.

[untold ingot]

I mean, Ark2 could come out next week. You never know. Asa dropped with no warning on April fools day.

[stray elm]

Actually, come to think of it. With the leaked codes between CS:GO2 and Deadlock, we know more about Half-Life 3 (HLX) then fucking GTA6.

[stray elm]

ASA was 'revealed' on April Fools.

[untold ingot]

Oh right. I got my timeline mixed up

[stray elm]

Yeah, it did semi-shadow drop though during the Xbox event in like October.
Though I think Wildcard was part of their list of scheduled showcases, so it was either ASA or ATLAS 2 that was going to be revealed.

[untold ingot]

You think atlas 2 is gonna be a thing?

[stray elm]

No, that's the joke.

[untold ingot]

Ah. Well I haven't seen wc do a legit April fools joke. All the things thst seem to be jokes are real

[stray elm]

Because no fucking way ARK-2 would've been revealed at that event.
I still think they have barely, if at all done any serious production towards it.

[stray elm]

Technically the fact they added cats on April 1st could count as a joke.

Bit absurd to imagine a cat, a flat out modern day cat to be added to a game with primal monsters and genetically modified abominations.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, but it was real

[desert spear]

Theres other modern creatures in the game added way earlier than the the fat

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[languid hamlet]

You’ve sent that message 17 times in the past 7 months, don’t do this to yourself

[tiny glade]

My first fan
I’m making progress

[languid hamlet]

You were giving me Deja vu

[true viper]

That's exactly what this game is suppose to be, an evolution of Ark as a game. Not much more can be done with ASA than what's already planned. If you discount all the remakes of existing maps, the only truly new evolution in the story in Lost Colony, which in an of itself is moving the needle towards the narrative of Ark 2. At a certain point, this specific brand of Ark game will have to be retired.

So far as the story is concerned, all directions point towards Ark 2, that's the only way to meaningfully progress the story. Prequels and filler stories like what Lost Colony is seemingly becoming are fine, but are only useful to expand upon narrative beats Ark 2 will hit on. The cat has been out of the bag too long for them to just cancel it and slave away on ASE/A for another 10 years.

Ark is in desperate need of a remake. For as excited as I am to see Lost Colony come out, and experience all that will have to offer, It still won't address the underlying problems that the game will continue to have in the future.

[tribal chasm]

I am hoping they slow down things for Ark 2. I hope they don't go 'well players have come to expect all this hyper accelerated stuff' but instead start from a 'less is more' approach again

[hollow python]

Ah ARK the future. Possibly releasing in 2050. What a time to be alive.

[low mason]

yea and it will be in early dev for another 100 yrs

[lethal bronze]

Most of us will all be dead or extremely old before ark 2 comes out

[sturdy fjord]

so we can abandon

[hollow python]

Still will release before Elder Scrolls 6.

[tribal chasm]

The actual date of like, mid 2027 to early 2028 is still pretty sad (I am bored now, dang it)

[low latch]

Is ark 2 going to be story game or it will be something like ascended?

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[true viper]

Story game

[true viper]

From what all we've seen, I think that's the approach that they were taking before we stopped seeing news updates

[fast oracle]

Ark 2? Survival ascended is ark 2?

[proper goblet]

GTA 7 out before ark 2. Calling it now

[chilly saffron]

Ark 2 is going to be revamped as a mobile gacha game

[fast oracle]

Ark 2 first add is gonna be a new titan THATS safe and a new end boss

[fathom hedge]

The game be bankrupt before release

[next frigate]

sun is gone die before ark 2

[steel seal]

We will be the dinosaurs in ark 2

[true viper]

No, loot boxes. Next question.

[shell lintel]

Has there been an update on the date for ark 2

[true viper]

The popular thought right now is late 2026 or late 2027

ASA development has a stranglehold on Ark 2 atm

[worldly garden]

2027 at the earliest for sure.

[untold ingot]

Yeah I think gen2 will be out in Asa before Ark2 launch

[true viper]

I think that's inevitable either way. Going by the canon events, it only makes sense for Gen 2 to relaunch before Ark 2 given the explicit connection between each of them.

[stray elm]

There's also the fact in their annual 2024 investor report, from what I understand, they stated that once ARK-2 comes out, they're dropping all support for ASA.
So, should probably get Gen2 out and ASA a bit more fixed before then.

[untold ingot]

Wait wait wait, they said that?

Dropping all support for Asa?

[stray elm]

From what I understand in legal terms in their investor report, yeah, that seems to be the case.

[untold ingot]

What page was that on?

[stray elm]

It's a document I can send you.
Don't know where the actual link of it comes from, but the direct link I got was from the ARK Ascended News twitter.

[worldly garden]

Following the launch date of ARK: Survival Ascended we will pay a monthly license fee of $2.0 million, which will be terminated upon the public release of ARK II.

[stray elm]

I doubt someone would fake like a 80+ page investor report.

[untold ingot]

It's the investor.snail report. Yeah I have it open.

[stray elm]

Ye, that's it.

[stray elm]

@untold ingot

So they're terminating their licensing for ASA once ARK-2 comes out.

[untold ingot]

That goes completely against the whole premise of Asa.

[stray elm]

Sounds in-character for Snail Games.

[untold ingot]

The whole point of Asa was to have a new look ase beside Ark2. Terminating Asa when Ark2 launches is a major issue

[stray elm]

Yerp.

[untold ingot]

So, I won't be buying Ark2 now.

[stray elm]

Oh, also they're due to all of their debt by the end of this year.

[untold ingot]

Unless they clarify that is not what they mean, I am not buying anything else from ark.

[stray elm]

So Lost Colony better come out with enough leeway time that they can crank up some money to pay off that debt, before they're fucked.

Because I assume if they don't pay back the debt in time, the people that are owed WILL still get something one way or another. Even if that involves Snail going into the negatives.

[steel seal]

Not a question, reread

[untold ingot]

Snail can eat a pile of manure as far as I'm concerned. It's wc that I care about. If they stop support for Asa when Ark2 launches then I'm done with wc too.

[stray elm]

There's a lot of interesting stuff in that report me and a friend where reading last night.
TL;DR of all of it.
"fuck the community, fuck any promises, if we don't pay back our debt before the year ends then we're also fucked."

Oh, and legal terminology of them being like "the ARK IP is dependent on us and without us it will fail"
MF Wildcard are the ones keeping their idiotic company even somewhat afloat.

[untold ingot]

Wc was 87% of their total revenue. The only reason snail still exists is because of ark. Ark would be fine without snail being a leech on it.

[stray elm]

To be fair, that's probably not a WC choice.
Buuuut also to be fair, support WC is supporting Snail, and IF they do flat out just drop ASA after ARK-2 comes out, then yeah, a line needs to be drawn.

[untold ingot]

Snails future depends entirely on peoples reception of ark. And it hasn't been good for the last 4 years

[stray elm]

I assume WC might have a bumpy exiting for a bit, but once they get back on their feet I imagine they'd actually would do better without a publisher leeching like 60% of their income.

[untold ingot]

As far as I'm concerned that line was just drawn. If they don't clarify it then it's set in stone

[untold ingot]

100% snails contributions to the ark franchise are a delay in releasing Asa center and that Aquatica crap

[stray elm]

I already had a feeling all this microtransactions was probably a desperate attempt to get money for that debt. But this investors report kind of solidifies it for me.

[stray elm]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, I just realized something.

Okay, so I don't know how public companies work.
But isn't the worth of a public company, and in turn their holdings (IP's) dependent on how well and such they're doing?

[untold ingot]

Yeah, somewhat. There are probably other factors.

Like investing

[stray elm]

If so, I imagine if for some reason they can't pay back their debt fully by the end of this year, that would knock their worth even more as they'd be FORCED to give back that money in any means, even if Snail has to be in the negatives.

[untold ingot]

Possibly.

[stray elm]

Could...Wildcard buy themselves out with the ARK IP if Snail reaches the negatives?

[untold ingot]

Tbh, I didn't even think of that. That would be epic fr

Maybe that's the way out

[stray elm]

If, and big IF that's how it works.
Would be really inconvenient if Lost Colony where to be delayed till December.

Would be a bigger inconvenience if LC underperformed in their sales, and Snail in fact does go in the negatives/bankrupt.

[untold ingot]

If lc was delayed but that made wc be able to be free of snail I would see that as acceptable

[stray elm]

Again, big if that's how it works.
But, oh no. I'm going to college/university during that time, I seemingly can't afford a 30$ USD expansion till Jan 2025.
Oh no.

[untold ingot]

Google Ai says a public company can buy itself out of its owning company through a process called a take-private transaction or going private. This typically involves a buyout by a group of investors,

So yeah it's definitely possible

[untold ingot]

I just had a health emergency that makes it so I can't buy lost colony until snail goes bankrupt

[stray elm]

"A “take-private” transaction means that a large private equity group, or a consortium of private equity firms, purchases or acquires the stock of a publicly traded corporation."

So seemingly, hypothetically it does seem to be the case.
Jesse, please save your money.

[untold ingot]

Pls pls pls.

It would be cool if Jesse, jat, dollie et al could buy back wc

[stray elm]

Don't know how much Dollie would make since I don't think she's a CEO.
But Jesse and Jeremy would be the two big ones that would already take a good percentage of Wildcards income.

They had enough to fund TAS from their own pockets they've saved up.
Which I assume that show is at LEAST 1Mil of a budget.

[untold ingot]

I think she was a major investor in the animated show tho. At least I thought so

[stray elm]

Oh, maybe yeah.

[untold ingot]

1 mil is a low ball estimate imo

[stray elm]

Right, that's basically the minimal.
1Mil though is still a fuck ton between two people though.

[untold ingot]

For normal people yeah. For a ceo of a big game company not really

[stray elm]

Right, so hopefully they have more still in their personal savings that, when the time comes, they can dump most of that shit into buying back WC and the ARK IP.

[untold ingot]

Maybe that was the idea of the animated show to make a big piece of cash to bankrupt snail and buy wc back 🤣

[stray elm]

That'd be a fucking 4D chess move.

[untold ingot]

Ikr

But it would be fantastic

[prime knoll]

Do they ever talk about ark 2 now?

Or are they just happy selling all the new stuff for ascended?

[untold ingot]

They talked about it a bit ago. And snail released a Financials tht says is still being developed

[true viper]

Depends on how fixed, fixed is frankly.

[stray elm]

Who the fuck is Frank?

[true viper]

A bit of both. Ark 2 is perpetually teased here and there, be it Bobs Tall Tales, but now more notably, Lost Colony.

I have to imagine that whatever contracts WC had with third party companies were still honored even with the announcements of a delays, and now this quiet one.

At the very least the art assets which are ready for launch are done if I'm thinking positively. Now it just comes down it game part of the game.

[lavish dome]

can ark 2 just be like a new asa dlc make it more pricey for sure but keep the game alive

[true viper]

Monumentally stupid idea

[blissful perch]

I think that suggestion betrays a belief that ark 2 is just “more of ark 1”, when it shouldn’t be and isn’t slated to be

[lament edge]

Just make Ark 2 like ase

[digital cave]

Wait ase isn't ark 2?

[worldly garden]

You mean ASA, and no.

[digital cave]

So ASA is a cash grab?

[vapid token]

yes

dont buy it most buggy cash grab game ive ever seen'

on extic rn and th osd gives bobs tales items even though i dont have bobs tales so its just a wasted drop lowkey

the bio grinder grind dino for kibble its behind a paywall

mods some u need to pay for nitrado only server hoster ands bad for the price

some dlc dinos like pyro mane and dreadmare u need to pay 5 dollars to tame

constant bugs and crashes modding community is lack luster half the mods are abanadoned and dont work or crash ur game

honestly one o f the worst overwatch 2 style renditioons of a game iv e ever seen still trying my best to make it fun but i jsut had to roll back and lose progress cause of a bug

literally only w is the free dlcs but all new content is behind a 30 dollar pay in for bobs tall tales

community dinos are bad the bison and deinotherium thanks for a new mammoth and wooly rino honestly its just sad

[blissful perch]

I envy your ignorance if this is serious

Asa is 100% filled with horrifying monetization practices, which will easily turn me off of ark 2 despite my years-long interest…but it’s not close to the countless trash games out there which are objectively worse. At least in Asa you can play Ark

[untold ingot]

Imo the only really bad monitization in Asa is the Pyro and dreadmare. Paid mods where a significant portion of the money goes to the modder is not a bad thing imo. It's significantly more supportive of modders and has a higher percentage given to them than literally any other company in the industry, and that means modders can spend more time making very high quality mods. I am more concerned about the future and stability of Asa. Especially now that it seems wc is at war with snail and snail is about to default

Asa isn't a cash grab, technically speaking. And ironically enough the most common complaints about Asa other than official server stability is that it isn't enough like ase.

[untold ingot]

Oh no, you got a free new dino🤣

[blissful perch]

The pyro and dread are by far the worst, but I can’t say I like how they did BTT where you can loot things you can’t use or be barred from interacting with parts of maps you own with base asa because someone else bought it

I much preferred ase’s approach where paid dlc was cleanly separated, and whatever tames you could find via someone’s transfer you could use as normal

[untold ingot]

I don't mind btt that much tbh. What part of the map can't you go to without it?

[blissful perch]

Sorry. Meant BTT structures and items on any map

[untold ingot]

I agree, but given that the dlc isn't a map they had to do something

[untold ingot]

Yeah, but that's kinda industry standard

[blissful perch]

Technically so is the dread and pyro if you use EA as the standard - it’s a major departure from ase’s model. Imo I’d rather have BTT for free and bundle the old maps into two larger cost packages

Perhaps bundling the extinction/ab/se BTT into “dlc one” and BTT2 into “dlc 2” with genesis

Hardly a scam (except for pyro. That’s a scam), but it’s definitely a major step backwards

[untold ingot]

They tried to do map bundles at the start, and people were majorly upset at the idea. It wouldn't have flown.

[blissful perch]

Pyro “didn’t fly” and yet they released dreadmane and people play asa

[untold ingot]

Yeah, I completely don't like fantastic tames on premise

[blissful perch]

But that’s the idea of including BTT alongside the maps so you aren’t just paying for old content, you’re getting “old content + new content” in a bundle

[untold ingot]

Well, that's why I said I was concerned about the future of ark lol. They went from 300k daily to 400k daily for 2 years, but dropped to 200k daily this year. It's a major falloff and there are hints that Asa gets the ase treatment as soon as Ark2 launches

[blissful perch]

I mean. It’s not THAT shocking when a game hits 10 years to…keep having the same game

10 years is a long time to run the exact same game

[untold ingot]

Yeah, people would have still been mad. Btt isn't technically a microtransation. Imo it is a full scale worth dlc, so I don't have an issue with it

[untold ingot]

Asa isnt 10 years tho. It's 2

[blissful perch]

I’ll certainly agree BTT is a real dlc and isn’t a scummy microtransaction

[blissful perch]

It’s ark 1, which is 10 years old

[untold ingot]

Sure its a step in the wrong direction and I'll never disagree with that, but they haven't crossed the line into microtransactions other than the ft and stupid skin packs

[untold ingot]

Legally it's not. And to people's wallets it's not.

[blissful perch]

You mentioned player counts, and I’m describing why they may be declining

A fresh coat of paint is great, but it doesn’t perfectly disguise that ark 1’s mechanics and gameplay are aging

[untold ingot]

Btt was already there as was ft before the count decreased

[untold ingot]

Yeah, although I'm not convinced that is true tho. Ase (which has worse mechanics overall) has a higher consistent base than asa

[blissful perch]

I’m saying the monetization is actually irrelevant to playercounts. If that mattered we’d see a huge drop after pyromane

ASE again has near identical mechanics to asa. Less QoL for sure, but it’s the same fundamental gameplay loop

[untold ingot]

I would agree. I don't think it mattered to most people. Playercount across both games hit 400k daily players. That's higher than peak ase

[tribal chasm]

during a free to play moment right?

[untold ingot]

No, December last year

The average dau over the year of 2023 was 400k+ on both games

This year it was 200k

Before Asa launch it was 300k

Asa drove the count up 100k players for nearly a year and a half. But last year both games fell off on dau. The average concurrent has stayed nearly the same since before Asa launched

Asa + ase has the same number of consistent dedicated players, but lost a lot of the inconsistent players

Like a dramatic amount

It might push up Ark2 launch, but I doubt that. It does seem possible that snail goes under in December tho

[blissful perch]

It’s not that shocking, at least to me. It’s certainly in line with my sentiment for years, which is that the ark 1 formula is old

[tribal chasm]

OSRS and WoW classic show old is not inherently bad, it's how you use it (? not meaning to sound dirty)

[blissful perch]

Old simply means that it’s not going to attract new players. It’s going to play off nostalgia and attract dedicated players, especially in the short run

In the long run old games can have a resurgence with a new generation of players, but most asa folks have heard of or have played ase not that long ago

[untold ingot]

But it's not tho. If it was you would expect a more gradual falloff seen even in ase. That's not what the numbers show.

[blissful perch]

You’re saying it’s a cliff rather than a slope

Is there an event around that time which you could link said cliff to?

[untold ingot]

The numbers (and observation of the community) show that the most common cause of people leaving is they are mad at the business practices in the last 2 years.

[blissful perch]

…ok but is that a cliff or a slope

Cause if it’s a cliff, it means one specific monetization move led to a huge loss in players. If it’s a slope, I don’t see how my line of reasoning is able to be dismissed

[untold ingot]

Th cliff is the entire year of 2024. I monitor concurrent players since I can't monitor daily unique users, and I noticed no falloff. Itsnot possible for me to say if it's gradual over a year or a dramatic event.

[blissful perch]

I see. So you have one datapoint for each year

[untold ingot]

Itsnot possible for me to say.

[blissful perch]

Doesn’t steam charts do monthly?

[untold ingot]

Combined with consistent data from their endpoint

[untold ingot]

That's concurrent. Not the same as daily

I have steams numbers. There isn't actually a dramatic falloff in either game. Which is the weirdest thing

[blissful perch]

Ok so CCU has stayed fairly consistent, but the unique daily users has fallen off?

[untold ingot]

There was a massive falloff in total users, but not consistent users

[untold ingot]

Yeah.

[blissful perch]

That’s even easier to believe lol. Means the current ark playerbase is extremely captive

This data could come from a base of extremely regular players playing extremely consistent

[untold ingot]

We knew that. But without higher quality dau numbers I can't pinpoint a cause for it. So it's mostly speculation

[untold ingot]

Sure. It's always been that way

[blissful perch]

Well the “cause” would be for the new user drops, which I agree would need better data

But it does support my point that new users aren’t that interested in a game designed in 2015 and monetized closer to an EA game than like ASE

[untold ingot]

Asa didnt seem to affect consistent arkers at all. But something in the last year drove away inconsistent players

[blissful perch]

(Not to say I’m 100% correct cause ofc you’re right there’s missing data)

[untold ingot]

Not really. There are a lot of possible causes, and judging community reactions the last year being upset with old mechanics isn't high in the list of complaints. It's actually the opposite. People with Asa was MORE like ase than less

Tbh, I think the largest cause might be bad press. Not from Aquatica tho since tht was this year

[blissful perch]

But if the community was actually upset (usually these people are the dedicated ones right?), we’d see a drop in CCU and maybe not daily users

So the dedicated players might be complaining, but that hasn’t really materialized into a drop in CCU

[untold ingot]

Maybe, but not necessarily. There are 300k people here, so that's a massive portion of te overall daus not just dedicateds. Without better data it's impossible to rule out either option

[blissful perch]

I agree no certainty is possible with existing data we have

Though a huge “you ruined the game for those of us who love and play it most” outrage usually results in a drop in CCU for other games

[untold ingot]

That is there is currently no correlation between data and complaints that I can see

[untold ingot]

This seems possible. The ue5.5 update might be enough to determine of that is the cause, depending on how impactful it is

[blissful perch]

Lost colony will be good data

If that dlc doesn’t change daily users much it might be safe to say new folks have written off asa

[untold ingot]

Unless it gets delayed until after December. Because snail might default, 🤣

[untold ingot]

Not just Asa. It's Asa and ase together

[blissful perch]

If snail goes bankrupt they’ll usually have to sell assets

[untold ingot]

Ark in general

[blissful perch]

And unless it’s a loan shark, loans are often extended

[blissful perch]

Well I’d assume ASE has little to no new players compared to asa, so my assumption was asa held all the new players. But idk if the data says otherwise

[untold ingot]

I don't know either. Like I said I don't have that data and can't get it. But the thing is that these are not new players being lost. This is the marginally consistent daus.

New players being lost would put it games at 300k together. It's way lower than that.

[blissful perch]

Yea I guess I should clarify what “daily average user” means here

I had assumed it was “unique users per day on average”. Is that not true?

[untold ingot]

That is what it is to my understanding yes

[blissful perch]

Usually that data is meant to show new players or “the general playerbase” as opposed to the dedicated base, which to your point means it can be hard to parse how “new” these folks are

[untold ingot]

Asa brought 100k dau to ark for the first year and a half roughly. Both games have since lost 200k. So it's not new players being lost, it's the nonaddicts basically

[untold ingot]

That's why the 300k->400k->200k has a say

An increase in dau is new players, a dramatic decrease in dau is consistent players

[blissful perch]

It certainly seems like the “general” base, consisting of casual or new players in this case (which if 200k is the CCU is only 50% which is wild) could fall off because the game’s mechanics are old and stale and because of monetization or other factors adding in aggregate

[untold ingot]

200k is the dau

That's data from years of dau

The concurrent players have stayed steady at like 45k between both games for 2 years

There are variations, but none that explain the dau

[blissful perch]

Ahhh gotcha gotcha

So the heavy ccu base went ~10% to 20%

[untold ingot]

So basically it's wierd because I dont see evidence of snails numbers in mine. Which you would expect with a 100k total falloff in daily users

[untold ingot]

It's basically stayed relatively steady since peak ase before Asa. It doesn't peak as much with dlc drops as ase did, but that's expected since ase gets more players usually

The dau from snails end of year reports and the ccu aren't correlated at all in my data, which I have gathered hourly for the last 2 years.

[blissful perch]

Does Snail’s data include console?

[untold ingot]

No, they use steam.

[blissful perch]

I do wish I knew more about the back end analytics devs get

[untold ingot]

I track steam for ase and Asa, but I can also track console (sort of) for asa

Steam is by far the majority, 50%+ all other counts put together

And that's consistent, so it's fair to say steam number trends are good predictors for the games success

[blissful perch]

Sure. What’s the discrepancy between your data and snail’s?

[untold ingot]

But that's what makes it wierd. My numbers (which come from official sources) do not give the same predicted dau that snail observed. I think snails is better, because they have better data, but it is concerning for the future of ark. From this data, unless things dramatically change this year, it seems possible that even though ark has a consistent hardcore dedicated base it doesn't keep players who aren't hardcore anymore. So we could all be in the lurch.

[untold ingot]

45k average with tod fluctuations that has been mostly steady since I started tracking. That doesn't correlate with either the gain or loss of players.

Snail observed a gain of 100k and a loss of 200k over the last few years, but that's not represented well in the ccu

[blissful perch]

Deleted mine so you can get the complete data story before I start tossing numbers around

[untold ingot]

I can't track dau. I track ccu. So I have 45k across both fairly consistently (at least within margin of error that's similar to ase timescales).

I can't track unique daily players on asa, and I don't on ase. So I can't determine dau trends very accurately.

I have to make assumptions like a normal distribution of playtime averaging about 5 hoursish to predict dau. And it's been fairly steady over the last 2 years.

But obviously something is off

And I don't think it's my analysis

Losing the revenue of 30% of its relatively dedicated playerbase over 3 years is a major hit to any game. And with snail in the position it's in, it's even more dramatic

[blissful perch]

Well to be fair asa isn’t a subscription, so it’s not a perfect 1:1 between active players and revenue

[untold ingot]

It's not much of an exaggeration to say that this is at least as critical as Asa launch was. But this is actually an observable effect

[untold ingot]

Dau is usually pretty predictive of future revenue tho. That's why they use that number.

Ccu is not predictive, which is why I have to extrapolate the dau

[blissful perch]

Sure, cause dau - consistent CCU usually means new players who just bought the game

But revenue is also driven (for ark 1) by content release schedules and monetization plans. Dunno how that all factors in tbh

[untold ingot]

Not explicitly. Changes in dau can mean new players. Which is why it's not major the 300k to 400k, because those were new users. If that dropped back to 300k I would say there was no issue. But dropping to 200k is an issue. Because that's not new players anymore, that's dropping into the semi dedicated base that's been there since ase. This is the first time I have seen that happen

It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that Asa launch year had very little effect on that base. But for some reason 2024 had a dramatic effect.

But I can't find the reason because ccu has been fairly consistent

I guess this is why an analyst is only as good as their data lol, and I don't have the right data for that

[thick abyss]

I can tell you what data you're missing, the majority of the hardcore OGs don't play anymore, along with a key part of content creators, without them, the timmys of ark aren't intriqued anymore, they shot themselves in the foot with ASA as bad as it was on launch and further more with P2W DLCs

[untold ingot]

See thst isn't supported by either dataset honestly. Some for sure. Your opinion on why the decrease occurred is not a valid data point. I know exactly what data I would need to answer the question, the issue is that it's not public for obvious privacy reasons. I am not doing opinion polls, because I find those mostly irrelevant and they don't legitimately answer questions

But as far as your comment, I already stated my assumption is bad press. But I look at the community as a whole, not just the pvp bobs not having YouTube anymore. Most of the community is pve so that wouldn't even affect literally 60% of the pop

And as I stated earlier, Asa launch had the effect of at least 100k new people joining on a daily basis for a year. So thats not it either

[thick abyss]

I'm talking as it is as a whole, not specifically one of pvp/pve/official/unofficial. Search trends have ASA peak at ASEs long term average and rapidly decline upon release, and further decline upon paid DLC announcement. It's not just that it was P2W (which as far as I know some PVE players actually care about some competitive parts of PVE -> better breed lines etc) but that it came out of nowhere after telling people the game was a 1 off cost again. People have short attention spans, so the majority of the casual player base, won't play a game they aren't consuming content for that's just fact, it's why the likes of League of Legends, although has a very negative community outlook upon the company like WC/Snail they have a healthy player base because there is still plenty of content for the casual player to consume.

[untold ingot]

What is your data source for those statements. If you want to talk trends you need to back it up

[thick abyss]

Literally take 5 seconds to go to google search trends and have a look my dude, I thought you said you were an analyst?

[untold ingot]

Because those are very broad statements you are making, and they aren't really represented in either of the official datasets

People jumping between games is a general trend in gaming yes. But ark has always had nearly a consistent 300k dau for years. So that assumption honestly doesn't hold here

[thick abyss]

Search trends have ASA peak at ASEs long term average and rapidly decline upon release, and further decline upon paid DLC announcement.
Most definitely is provable with search trend data, but you do you, you obviously have a bias and aren't interested in the facts so enjoy wallowing in self proclaimed knowledge.

[untold ingot]

Technically I am. Because 8 am using math for anlysis

[untold ingot]

... If you have a datasource I want to know it.

I don't want to make assumptions and I don't let other peoples assumptions change th results I get

[thick abyss]

????? what is wrong with you? do you have an ABI? I told you the data source.... 🤡

[untold ingot]

But if it's a legit source an is relevant to th question

[untold ingot]

I am not a professional analyst.

[thick abyss]

Nor capable of analysing a sentence.....

[untold ingot]

There are enough trolls here that 8 have to assume that at the outset

[thick abyss]

I can't even paste a link so enjoy googling it buddy, google trends have only been around for almost 20 years I can't help further than that

They are so basic, that wannabe drop shippers use them for product research so shouldn't be hard to work out

[untold ingot]

I am looking at ark survival trends and it appears representative of my findings. It's mostly stable with a few peaks related to launches

[thick abyss]

my dude, do a comparative trend

Ark Survival Ascended
vs
Ark Survival Evolved

Worldwide
2008->present

Youtube Search

[untold ingot]

I might use that tho.

I'm not really comparing the two games tho. I'm interested in both together

In general though the Google trends is remarkablely similar to my findings on ccu trends. The error between the two isnt that big

Right now I am just interested on explaining the discrepancy between snails reported numbers and my own, and Google seems to support mine 🤣

[tacit oak]

Now that GTA 6 is delayed, it would be time to Release Ark 2 anytime soon

[polar moat]

when is ark two coming out of early access it already passed the prediction by 5 months

[fallow niche]

Ark 2 hasn't released, therefore it can't be in EA. Use #ark-survival-ascended for Ark Survival Ascended (which is not Ark 2).

[glacial prairie]

⬆️

[glacial prairie]

It aint releasing before gta6 buddy

[whole sinew]

GTA VI has been delayed and most ppl know that ark ii was going to be released in 2026 or 2027 at maximum cuz if it releases in 2025 when gta vi was going to be released it will not get attention but now GTA VI is delayed ARK II has a good chance of coming out this year and maybe winning Game Of The Year if it doesn't come out this year it will come out 2027

[true viper]

There's no way that it will release this year

For as good as it would be for all of us in this chat, it will further split an already heavily segregated player base.

[blissful perch]

Let’s also not beat around the bush - it won’t be ready this year. Their trial run of lost colony won’t be until end of this year right?

[simple sphinx]

It’s dead

[worldly garden]

It wasn't going to release this year regardless of GTA VI situation.

[true viper]

I've never understood the connection people make between GTA and Ark. They're not even remotely comparable.

[true viper]

Yeah, November if not December

[blissful perch]

they're likening the very long dev cycles

though idk if I'd compare WC to rockstar in terms of developer capacity...

[true viper]

Oh definitely not, it would be flat out unfair to.

Generally speaking, I don't think people know just how small WC are, nor could I expect absolutely everyone to be aware of that.

[whole sinew]

then you don't understand gaming

[whole sinew]

you can't tell actually if it was going too or not

[stray elm]

Kind of can.
There's no way in hell Wildcard will release ARK-2 before Gen-2's ASA rerelease. They've always been really specific with ordering of releases with story maps.
That'd be a missed opportunity to not market Gen-2 again towards leading up to ARK-2, like they initially did when Gen-2 first released. (when ARK-2 'was' going to be their next project after ASE Gen-2)

[worldly garden]

Yeah you can if you pay attention. I mean Lost Colony they've already said leads into the events of Ark 2. This would tell you that Ark 2 wouldn't come before Lost Colony, and Lost Colony is set for November release, which lets be honest will likely be December.

[stray elm]

I think that's just a marketing ploy.
Because technically, it'll lead into the events of Genesis, which leads into the events towards ARK-2.
Cutting out the middle man, you can 'technically' say Lost Colony will lead into ARK-2, even though we still have two more story maps to go.

[worldly garden]

Yeah but the point being made still stands though.

[untold ingot]

Maybe it just rests

[marsh palm]

how's this game doing

any news at all?

[blissful perch]

Not much beyond it’s still being worked on

[floral tide]

Gugugaga

[void belfry]

They will release ark 2 once they have milked ascended dry. After which they will cut support for it just like ase and put everything into A2. Probably got another solid 3-4 years until A2’s release. I have a hunch WC only planned to keep ASA going for about 5 years.

[serene onyx]

Are you sure

[void belfry]

Yeah I’m 99.9% sure. Unless A2 ends up being a single player offline game, WC will not support both games because it will cost them too much. Therefore, A2 isn’t going to release until ASA has stopped producing profit as it would be a waste of investments by WC and snailgames. And you can predict how long ASA will last by examining how it has performed over the last year. There is a few months of life after a new map drops then the game dies. We only have a few years left until WC will be out of content for ASA then it’s the end of the line.

[tribal chasm]

You can still watch trailers from early Ark, like...there's an interview with Jesse (interviewer Lirik) in May 2015, and you still go 'damn, this is a game I want to play'

Even the theme music felt a lot more epic back then, I dunno...
go back to 2015 formula again for Ark 2 maybe, it's good

[blissful perch]

Sometimes you have to take those nostalgia glasses off

[blissful perch]

200k users isn’t dead

Much as I’d love to see all officials shut down so wc can save on costs, it’s unlikely

[worldly garden]

certainly not dead, but that 200k is ASE+ASA combined, however, only for Steam. People ignore console numbers because no-one knows what the numbers are for them.

[blissful perch]

Sure

But between the two games, “Ark” is hardly in a dead state 😉

Though like I’ve said way too many times to not be annoying, I’m very ok with officials being shut down so admin and server costs can be spent on development. Unofficial servers seem to be pretty capable of maintaining the game experience

[tribal chasm]

It's not entirely nostalgia, I think they can definitely modernize a lot of features -- take the customizable items and dodge mechanics, I think that is a good direction for Ark 2. They could even do basic stuff like allowing players to 'cower' with ridden dinos, to help reduce damage...
It feels like they missed the point of the assignment with ASA, too much tacky + blatant references to stuff as well.

I don't entirely trust unofficial servers myself, I have yet to see one for Ark that can support a hub of players (and keep interest) for more than a few weeks

[blissful perch]

MTS in ASE anyway seems to have lasted a long time. But part of the reason you don’t see it is that anyone competing with officials is gonna be dead

[tribal chasm]

MTS is the example I think of as well, it comes around a few times a year, but only thrives for a good week or two each time.
If you look up unofficial servers for ASE, it's usually 1 Russian server that's near max pop, then pages of Chinese servers with suspicious amount of players + server info. Almost like they are botted servers to inflate playercount 😛

[blissful perch]

That’s wipe PvP for ya

But it does have a consistent base

As for ase, no reason imo to run much over there when Asa exists

[untold ingot]

Pvp wipes in general don't last long. There is no incentive to stick with a wipe for long, since everything is boosted and if your stone base gets wiped there is another server wiping in 2 day anyway.

[blissful perch]

It almost makes me feel like Bob PvP servers would do better

But idk how that all has played out over the years

[untold ingot]

People don't wanna be bobs tho. They want ez tek in 2 hours, unraidable caves for them and raid able bases for everyone else. They want instant tame and 25x harvest

[blissful perch]

And, frankly, most of that should be the standard

Quick tames, easy building, easy gathering, very similar progression level for all players, and a focus on online rather than offline PvP

Though given the number of PvP classic seasons I suspect not everyone wants to play with tek

[tribal chasm]

It does not work that way though, it just ends up a situation where attackers never run out of resources + can always offline with little prep

[tribal chasm]

I know it's doable, many games very similar to Ark have done it before, just would require a forum post/video essay to properly talk about (not suitable here lol)

[untold ingot]

Not everyone does, but most do

Unofficials issue with keeping a stable base is that there are too many equivalent options, so if there is even a minor snag just leave and start somewhere else. If wc had their own wipe cluster separate from main official that might retain players better. Or would have years ago

[harsh spear]

i would like it if bases had a pve zone around them so pvp only happens outside of your base

[modern marlin]

What for pve or pvp

Becsuse how would raid work

[harsh spear]

maybe as a seperate mode like a soft pvp or something idk

i like pvp but i dont like having to start all over again from being wiped. i dont like to spend time into something where i know itll be vanished soon so this kind of pvp would be fun for me.

there would have to be a limit to base-size though because otherwise people would try to claim all of the area for the pve advantage

[untold ingot]

That's not something that'll be implemented tho

It's too easy to cheese

[blissful perch]

It sounds like colosseum or “round based”
PvP would be what you want, and I agree such a thing would be a great addition

Something like “defend the castle” would be pretty fun too. A team spawns in and has to hold a castle from attackers for X time or something

[harsh spear]

yea that would be interesting. i remember genesis one had these missions where u fight off waves which is a bit like defend the castle. those missions were received well. so i think adding stuff like this wouldnt hurt the game

it could be interesting as well if it was the opposite, attack the castle type of thing. there was also this mission in genesis one but we never got it done cuz the giga at the end kept gatekeeping us.

maybe pve held tribes where u raid them could be interesting as well. it would be a good alternative to just having creatures around to fight

and based off the trailer i think we might just get this

[blissful perch]

Yea i think PvE will have ai “player factions” in ark 2

Though I’d love to see some curated gamemodes for PvP, since I certainly lack the time to spend maintaining a base that’s gonna get offline raided…but might have fun with ark PvP otherwise

[untold ingot]

Mts arena

[true viper]

I don't think we'll be seing hostile human NPC tribes personally. I think it's pretty straight forward to assume that Orcs will be the only sapient antagonistic force in the game.

[harsh spear]

well thats what i meant though. orc tribe held bases

[true viper]

Ah right on. My bad, when I hear tribe it registers as human tribe

[graceful glacier]

Best channel to yap about poetry

[tribal chasm]

What are you looking for in Ark 2 when it comes to Ark 1's dino levels/levelling system?
I think it would be cool to bring it back somewhat, but would like to see a system where:
Low level tames can be tamed very easily, but higher level ones will require investment again.
No more taming mass level 150's afk + max bonus with the meat from 1 dead racer etc.

You see Ark when it came out, it was problematic because sometimes a level 20 dino would still take like 3 hours to tame. (I know max levels were 1-30 when Ark came out, but still)

[blissful perch]

I don’t want almost anything to be the same as any point in ark 1’s history - the comment you replied to was more about my thoughts on a “quick fix” for PvP

My actual thoughts are that no tame should take longer than 30ish minutes, and that higher level or stronger creatures should instead be simply more challenging to tame rather than more tedious. Harder to get taming “items”, harder minigames, maybe even a boss fight to weaken something to make it tamable, etc can all be used

[untold ingot]

Ngl I look for a removal of te level system entirely. I want it to be skill tree based for dinos and players. Thatll help with balancing too

[dry rain]

@everyone this is not gonna come out 😭 🙏

[blissful perch]

I’d certainly remove stat leveling, but I think the level system being tied to skills or other upgrades could be fine. Experience is somewhat easy to conform to a potential new progression system

[harsh spear]

i think having levels can be beneficial but there needs to be a reasoning for it to exist.
like lets say, being lvl 1 u can only take on weak creatures like dodos or dilos but the higher u get the more powerful creatures u can take on and tame.
but the way ark currently works is that u just need to unlock narcotic/arrows and then u basically tame or kill anything because of traps and abusement of tracking issues.

when i think of mmorpgs, the level is a more limiting factor because it does decide what creatures u are able to take on.

having that be, it would also make sense why saddles are labeled on certain levels. currently it just feels odd and random having it be limited to a level.

[blissful perch]

Issue one ofc is levels are pointless in ark 1 because of note runs

But most if not all RPGs rely on “different level areas” for the design you seem to be suggesting, which I don’t know if ark 2 is willing or able to do that. Though I suppose Ab does that already

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[north edge]

what upgrades shall i do to run ASA? i got msi 2070s and ryzen 5 3600

[untold ingot]

Level isn't the only way to do that. Consider rust. The limiting factor isn't level nor xp. It's an item tree. Rust uses scrap to fulfill the same limiting factor that xp does, only it's a much more satisfying system. There are ways to limit endgame that doesn't rely on simple "make number big" like ark leveling

Using xp and levels is the most simplistic basic generic way to limit progress and there is always easy ways to cheese it

[blissful perch]

generally speaking experience will always have the benefit of being non-linear but the risk of having an "easiest method" that can circumvent other gameplay elements

however, I've seen great success from hybrid systems that have experience gained levels that "cap" with certain challenges or specific requirements that direct people to have completed a variety of tasks beyond simply grinding the "quickest" mode of experience

[sullen panther]

I think in ARK 2 will be coming in 2035

[untold ingot]

Maybe it's me, but xp seems very linear

[blissful perch]

xp is one of the least linear forms of progression because it essentially means you progress by doing almost anything - since so many things often grant exp

in ark however it's completely broken, and has been for years, because of 1) baby kills grant it and 2) notes grant a stupid amount of it

[stray elm]

Think the way ARK-2 is wanting, you'll instead get engram points via doing specific missions/events.

[untold ingot]

Exactly, or a certain amount of crafting, or kills or something

[stray elm]

"Gain both experience points from gameplay, and knowledge points by accomplishing key objectives and overcoming unique challenges, to progress along a massive skill tree filled with new active abilities, perks, and passive benefits."
At least from what I understand, you'll be able to level up your stats via normal like ARK-1. But you'll need to actually do other shit to get engrams points. (or in ARK-2, knowledge points)

[untold ingot]

Right now it's run around looking at paintings and making boats, and somehow that makes you powerful enough to fight deity

[stray elm]

We'll see how it goes, but I'm fine with that.
A level 100 player with 99 points into health will still get one shotted if all they have is cloth armor. So stats don't really worry me.

[harsh spear]

cheesing scrap mechanic is much easier than a xp leveling system

[untold ingot]

I'm not saying rust is the ideal framework for a system, just giving and example of a game that has the same basic premise of ark without using xp at all

[stray elm]

By this descriptions logic, it seems like one might be able to get learn high tier stuff before being a high level. As long as they can complete said missions/events.
So kind of Gen2 logic is seems, but tie the Gen2 missions to how engram points are gained.

[untold ingot]

Imo xp is antiquated from a time when there were computational limits on what you could do to progress

[stray elm]

I still think ARK would be funny if it had TES/Runescape logic of leveling up.

[untold ingot]

I don't know those games tbh 🤣

[stray elm]

You can only get xp from doing said task.
Can only increase melee if you actually punch/attack a living entity.
You get more health if you keep getting abused.
You get more stamina xp by draining/using stamina.

[harsh spear]

in any case i hope we wont see any pay2win like pay 2 get scraps. that seems like something snail would wanna implement if the system was based upon a ressource

[untold ingot]

That's a more interesting system for sure.

[tribal chasm]

Oh great, reward those players who jump around base for hours because they are bored

[untold ingot]

Tbh, if player stats were leveled that way it would be cool, but engrams, saddles and weapons shouldnt be obtained like that

[stray elm]

Technically Skyrim has a little bit more to it then Runescape does.
You get xp to a specific skill (one handed blade, light armor, heavy armor, conjuration, etc) if you do said thing.
Once you level up that skill, you get xp for your overall level.
Once you actually level up your player, you get a skill point you can spend to then unlock a specific new ability in a skill. (less stamina being used by swinging your sword. Or it can do more damage, stuff like that.)

[untold ingot]

Crafting recipes should be entirely uncorrellated with player level

[stray elm]

Ye, fuck it.

[stray elm]

That's where the knowledge points being tied to world events/missions come in.

[untold ingot]

Well, Skyrim is acclaimed as one of the best games of all time right? So maybe they had a good idea 😂

[stray elm]

Honestly, levels aren't that bad of a thing.
Again, as stated a bit above. No amount of health without doing ascensions will save you if you have shit gear.
Gear will always be the bigger issues then a level 100 player with 500 health that'll just get one shotted by a rex, because dude still doesn't have any clothes.

[untold ingot]

Erm. If you are level 105 and getting hit by a Rex, that's a skill issue

[stray elm]

Someone with 99 points in melee can knock out another beach bob in one shot, with just their fist. But pull that shit with a dude in flak armor and you'll just get 12-gauged in the face.

[stray elm]

Yes.

[untold ingot]

I don't super have an issue with player levels. Those were never that op. But player levels unlocking items and Dino levels making two of the same Dino vastly different in capacity always bugged me

[harsh spear]

what i think could be really fun is if they had world timed missions players can participate against other players in to gain a ressource. like maewing or blooderstalker race from genesis missions but against other players.

[untold ingot]

Melee Bob works amazing against flak tho,

[stray elm]

If they have a club

[untold ingot]

If you have 99 points in melee having a club is ez

But you see my point

[stray elm]

Right, but my point is that gear is what's going to make or break balancing. Not player levels.

[harsh spear]

thats assuming that theyll use the same damage formula for ark 2

[untold ingot]

Dino levels and item unlocks is my issue. Character levels would be nice if they were handled more dynamically, but it's not a major issue

I think 2 rexes should be effectively equivalent, and more rare. With the only differences being traits and a skill tree.

[tribal chasm]

I don't know why, but your comment reminded me of saddle durability, I wonder if that will return for Ark 2

[harsh spear]

i can see the issue relating levels in pvp though.
its just making imbalance when u make lvl 0 bobs contest max lvls.
so i guess their way of balancing it did evolve around making busted stats like movespeed a thing so people would feel like they have a chance.

if levels increased all stats at once at a rate, the system would become more obvious that its based upon abusing new people

[untold ingot]

In pvp that'll always be a thing in a perpetual server tho, imo it's not that big an issue

[tribal chasm]

It's a common surprise people face when playing Ark for the first time;
especially if they have come from any sort of FPS game or Rust, where you have a real chance to take on anybody...
or the shock of having to shoot arrows/pike a dino 1000x times to defeat it

[blissful perch]

350 armor flak be like

also breeding be like

[stray elm]

I've had flak above 1,000.
You just don't get damaged anymore. It's more of a durability game at that point.

[blissful perch]

yep. cause ark 1 stats are stupid

a 100k health stego is not gonna work

[harsh spear]

its not an issue for u, because u are likely one of the people who benefit from abusing new people. but u need to think of it in a broader sense. is it actually a good thing to have in the game where casuals dont get hooked, leave the game and u are only left with more hardcore players ? is it good for the game when power levels benefit the ones who played longer and are therefore already more skilled at the game to begin with ?

[blissful perch]

wrong question

ark pvp will never be fair to casuals

[stray elm]

Pretty sure that's just any survival PvP.
Rust is pretty casual unfriendly if I recall.

[harsh spear]

i mean if u made levels a nonthing, casuals would still lose but they maybe wouldnt quit because they feel like its an actual skill issue and not a grind more so i win type of thing

[untold ingot]

Dude this is a competitive perpetual pvp game. To make casuals have a chance you really have to change the whole premise of the game, make it ridiculously easy, and make it arkade style. There are plenty of games likhr that for people to play.

[blissful perch]

they'd just get rinsed by people with endgame gear. nothing would functionally change

[untold ingot]

Casuals will always lose in any pvp game.

Just how it is. Its not preventable

[stray elm]

Aye, just saying. I always thought the survival genre benefitted more with their PvE/SP titles instead of any of their competitive shit.

[untold ingot]

Ark lasted a decade with that model and virtually never lost pop, so that's not an issue imo

[untold ingot]

Yeah, also that way in ark too. It's not like people who are bad at the game can't enjoy the game another way

Ark has pve literally for that reason

[tribal chasm]

hmm well the PvP scene definitely lost pop, but the game still thrives with other modes

[stray elm]

Because PvP is the minority anymore with ARK.

[blissful perch]

objectively pve has more people, but it's also true that there's a very committed group of people who play pvp

[untold ingot]

Seasonally, due to new maps dropping. But never substantially becaise of how hardcore it js

[blissful perch]

it's tediouscore

[untold ingot]

That's why there is pve

[blissful perch]

and dubiously acceptable given the mental pressure to play ark all day every day to keep a base alive

but I suppose that's what megas are for

[tribal chasm]

I still need to research Rust more (not played for a while)
are there really servers with 1000+ players on at once?

[blissful perch]

as for casuals though, WC would need to add a pvp arcade mode that actually worked

[tribal chasm]

the question being asked because of a current issue with megatribes (server capping)

[stray elm]

Survival of the Fittest 2.0 had some decent numbers on release, but as always. Wildcard stopped its development too soon, because the pop dropped Wildcard decided to not release any new content or maps for it.

[blissful perch]

a rust server can hold way more people because there is basically no pve in rust

[blissful perch]

prolly cause they're wildly overtaxed with asa and ark 2

which really means they shouldn't have released SotF as a live service and should have instead given the community tools to run it smoothly themselves

[untold ingot]

Yeah there are

[untold ingot]

They tried twice with sotf and failed both times

[stray elm]

One dude made the SOTF 2.0 update for ASE.
One, fucking dude. And that was some modder they recently hired at the time.
Pretty sure they could've just allowed him to stay doing SOTF stuff.

[stray elm]

Three times.

[untold ingot]

Oh right 😂

[blissful perch]

they tried twice and abandoned ship twice because it split their resources too much twice

[untold ingot]

I don't think it's that important for wc to make a scene for casuals. Unofficials do that already

By supporting the modding scene they literally are making a place for casual pvp without it costing dev time and resources

[stray elm]

2016 SOTF was geared only towards E-Sports competitors, and that went down as well as we saw.
SOTF 2.0, came out a bit after Gen2 for ASE did decently well, but they abandoned it to develop ASA and promise SOTF would be integrated into the base game for ASA.
ASA releases, no SOTF, took like two months for it to be ported, did well at first, and then the population dropped after the first week because it was just the same fucking map for the third time. So they dropped it and have now completely removed it from the front page.

TL;DR.
They shot themselves in the foot three times.

I genuinely think SOTF could've worked, if they allowed it to go a bit further in development, and add at least one new map.

SOTF on Extinction, with the Titans would've gone hard.

[untold ingot]

If sotf had a matchmaking ability and had more maps it would have been awesome imo

[blissful perch]

2016 SOTF ran at 10 fps for almost everyone

PRIMARY issue it had was nobody could play it

[untold ingot]

But tbh, I do honestly think that mts arena back in the day was just better

[stray elm]

Well, that was also just 2016 ARK.

[stray elm]

I am so sad that they went with a Steamboat Willie gamemode as their official test mod for ASA's total conversion system (whatever it's called) instead of a Quake arena-shooter like mode.

[blissful perch]

ark in 2015 ran better than asa felt like it did lol

[stray elm]

Nah, I have day-one ASE and this shit runs like ass on a 4090

[blissful perch]

it's rose colored glasses lol i knew it ran like trash

[stray elm]

Technically I have a slightly updated version (pre creature updates) because ACTUAL day-one ASE baked with 4K textures.
On UE4.
You know where that story is heading.

It's like the first week old version, after they released like 20+ patches to make the game actually work.

But going back to the PvP stuff.
Thought ARK PvP was better suited in gamemodes like SOTF that aren't permanent established stuff. Matches that only last an hour at tops, etc.
The actual open world base building was better suited for PvE.

[harsh spear]

is it though? ur just blocking each others building space while not really interacting with each other

[stray elm]

On official, sure.
But I'm more talking about the general experience of PvE, which is mostly on unofficial.
With rules.
With actual moderation.

[harsh spear]

whats the difference for unofficials ?

[stray elm]

Most actual regulated unofficial servers have pillar spamming as a rule. Meaning if you report it, and the server is actually alive with active moderators. They'll come over and wipe that entire area from the pillar spam.

Caves are also usually regulated to some degree in unofficial servers, again, if they're actually properly moderated.

[harsh spear]

im pretty sure that pillar spam can also be reported for official servers when u make a ticket.

there is a chance that theyll remove it

[stray elm]

You can, and there is a chance.
But there is a really low chance.
Moderation for the most part on official fucking sucks.

[harsh spear]

this kinda leads into the other suggestion i made that bases should have a building zone limit.
like 3x spots u can claim with a radius and nothing past that can be build upon. like palworld does it basically.

because u cant expect players to not do something when its actually beneficial to them

[blissful perch]

allegedly this is something being worked on in ark 2, but who knows

the short answer is that pvp in ark right now is all about "endure as long as you can in anarchy" and pve is best served off officials entirely

[long haven]

Where is ark2?

[stray elm]

Dead and forgotten until ASA is done

[long haven]

No

[sweet yew]

wen is ark 2 and 3???????

[serene onyx]

Not that far away it comes out in 2060

[untold oracle]

We getting ark 2 before gta 6. guaranteed

[digital pulsar]

I think your off a little, more like 3060

[lone walrus]

Spot on predictions

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth but GTA 6 Trailer 2 just dropped

[sweet yew]

Ark 2 is not a myth

[untold ingot]

Well, I'm never getting gta 6, sooo

[rain nexus]

In only 500 more years we will have ark 2

[fallow niche]

@plucky whale #bug-reports or #bobs-with-probs. This channel is for Ark 2, not Ark Survival Ascended.

[uncut niche]

I have a question. What will come out first: ARK 2 or GTA 6?

[lofty berry]

GTA

[blissful perch]

For PlayStation? Probably anything but ark 2, given there’s no confirmed ark 2 release for PlayStation

[warm current]

Since ark 2 has no release date at all and gta 6 got pushed back till next year it’s hard to tell at this point

[frigid knoll]

Games take years to build, exceptional graphics I've seen take at least 5 years. Really depends on the team. The real question is, how long have they been talking about Ark 2? (And remembering that GTA is cram packed full of insane details, like how specific weapons and characters react to each other 😬 GTAs so violent I'm so uncomfortable with it 😅)

[warm current]

I can’t wait for the new gta unfortunately I have to buy it twice since it won’t release on pc for a year or two after the initial release

[untold ingot]

Tbh the hype for gta I don't get. It's not even a good concept, but people are going crazy about it

[thick moat]

because the difference in years from the last entry is huge, and gta 5 being the biggest game along minecraft gives a lot of expectation

[untold ingot]

It'll probably disappoint tbh

[near ferry]

The true question

[peak matrix]

Ark 2 will never see the light of day.

[digital pulsar]

You have a better chance at winning the lottery than Ark 2 coming out.

[near marsh]

Gta 6 before ark 2💔

[worldly garden]

what's it matter if GTA 6 comes first anyway?

[distant pendant]

Ark 2 isn’t real

[velvet wraith]

it already came out

i play it

[shadow sky]

R u alright lol

[blissful perch]

I admire your overestimate of lottery odds

[untold ingot]

Everyone does that, that's why the lottery still happens 😂

[untold ingot]

Lottery tickets as a markov process is an abismal probability

[winged dome]

Ark2 Discord Channel Challenge [IMPOSSIBLE!]

Go 24 hours without someone mentioning GTA6

Can't be done.

[mint swan]

At this point, is Ark 2 even a game or just a mythical creature Vin Diesel dreamt up in a fever dream? It's been longer than GTA 6's teaser cycle!

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[clear carbon]

I remember when it was supposed to release in 2022 😔

[winged dome]

Couldn't even make it an hour!

[pastel venture]

ark 2 will never release

snail games financial statement says they are broke, after selling 79 million copies of ase

[green coral]

Ark 2 will be story?

[tawny gulch]

Ark 2 is going to be an EPIC FAILURE

[worldly garden]

There will be some, but it wont be a story game

[sterile knot]

GTA has more proven merit in its content that Ark does fails to do in hence why the general player base no longer cares for ASA and content release

[blissful perch]

What does “merit in its content” mean?

Asa and gta both have content

[languid hamlet]

Meme

[silent crescent]

I'm real

[terse kraken]

The company can't manage Ark Ascended, they closed Evolved and still dream of ARK 2, WC like this is impossible with steps bigger than your little legs.

[errant gorge]

Blame snail

They forced wildcard to suspend work on ark 2 to litteraly retexture the same game in a different engine so they could sell you the thing you already had for 50 dollars

[stray elm]

Snail's done a lot of stuff, but last time I checked they didn't "force" Wildcard to do ASA. That was all Wildcard's idea.

Wildcard themselves when ASA was first revealed flat out stated on that weeks CC that "we have no idea how to fully utilize UE5, and we need more money since its been three years (at the time) since Gen2 came out."

[keen radish]

How ark 2

[stray elm]

Who ark 2?

[stark lotus]

why ark 2?

[proper goblet]

Where ark 2?

[stray elm]

You know that answer.

[untold ingot]

I think you think there is more overlap in playercounts than then there is

[stray elm]

I don't understand people comparing ARK to GTA.
Completely different communities, with different marketing, with different interests they give to their players.

Same goes with people saying Half-Life 3 shouldn't release on the same month as GTA6.
Why?
They're completely separate markets that don't compete with each other.
Half-Life 3 will never beat a GTA release, because that IP has been mostly MIA for decades.
Valve wouldn't make HL3 for GTA/console players. They'd make it for people who have waited for a HL3 game.
Feel like the same applies for ARK-2.

Now, if for some reason ARK-2 changed completely in its design, and wanted to be a criminal simulator game akin to GTA.'Theeeeeen' GTA would be an active competitor to ARK.
If, for some unrealistic, unholy reason, that where to happen.

[spring shard]

ark 2 is GOTY 2025

[stray elm]

ARK-2 is likely not coming this year. 🐟

[vast kestrel]

we'll have created flying pigs through genetic modification before ark2

[untold ingot]

Tbh, if you can't use rational thought a comparison of gta and ark makes sense. Otherwise it's nonsense 🤣

[wary flower]

I have a massive issue with Ark 2 btw

Studio Wildcard should listen to me 😂

[terse kraken]

Keep defending them, they don't even care what they think, they're just fooling the public. As long as they keep sucking up to the company, it will only mess around like always and they will always give lame excuses.

[tacit pivot]

Snail to cut costs of ark2 change vinDISEL to vinLPG

[hollow loom]

GTA6 before Ark 2 🥀

[jovial bramble]

Wild card is going for the worst company ever Award

How do u F something up with that much potential. Oh, wild card can write the book on that...

[untold ingot]

Easy, have snail in charge. That's how it gets messed up

[spring shard]

nah ark 2 is def coming out before gta 6

[stray elm]

Just speculation, but ARK-2 likely isn't coming out until Gen2 gets rereleased.
Recent Snail Games document shows that Snail wants to completely withdraw from ASA once ARK-2 releases.

So, if that's the case. We're not seeing ARK-2 until late 2026 at minimal.

[untold ingot]

That's my assumption too

[harsh spear]

thats a bad sign. that means that they wanna get their hands on ARK 2.

[stray elm]

Feel like it less means that, and more that they don't want to dedicate any resources towards ASA when they have ARK-2 released.

[harsh spear]

but there is a difference when it says snails wants to withdraw compared to wildcard wants to withdraw. snail likely incoporates bad monetization models and such while wildcard is the actual development

where can i see that document ?

[hoary epoch]

Snail games is a lesson for anyone on how to ruin a great game

[ruby vessel]

Hello

[hoary epoch]

Hi

[mint swan]

Bro ARK 2 will see the day by 2026

[silver elm]

I swear if we get GTA 6 before ark 2 imma flip

[long sparrow]

I doubt ark 2 would release before gen2 does and its current release date is after GTA 6. so unless that gets delayed again (and gen2 doesn't) its very unlikely.

@arctic pilot This is for ark 2. #1110925695900713072

[finite willow]

Isn't releasing in 2030??

[tribal chasm]

In ASA they have a queue system for joining a server, but it's not a true queue system - rather just a 'attempt reconnect every x seconds'.
I am hoping for Ark 2 they can have an proper queue system, and perhaps implement priority based on how long that player has been on the server.

70/70 players on server, 10 people looking to join. 8 of those have never visited before, 2 of those players have played 10+ hours on the server. Players who had 10+ hours get to skip to the front of the queue?

Something like that could be cool to see

[untold ingot]

A queue system would take 25 minutes to implement. They didn't do it for a reason.

[tribal chasm]

I'm sure, wouldn't be the first time they have included (or not included) a feature to stop something else

[untold ingot]

A queue is too easy to cheese and lock people out. It works great if the server has like 1000 people, or small groups, but really doesn't work for large groups and small server pop

[tribal chasm]

I lowkey just want to see Ark compete with Rust in terms of entertainment and balance. Entertaining enough people will want to watch it on Twitch or whatnot.

[untold ingot]

Ark has too long a timescale for that 😅

[blissful perch]

If you want that you’d need to, as Raq said, actually make the game’s scale watchable. Though imo it goes beyond timescale and requires things like preventing offline raids (boring as shit to watch), hours upon hours of material grinding without a peep of real action, etc

Basically transform PvP to a place that prizes skill expression over attrition

[glass garden]

so i thought release date wasa supposed to be 2023 then they pushed it back to late 2024. Do we just not have a release date at all now?

[worldly garden]

nope

[true viper]

Current guess is sometime after Genesis II relaunches

We'll likely start getting more info/marketing following the release of Lost Colony considering how connected they are to each other. That's just my opinion though.

[true viper]

True Tales as well, I have to imagine there will be more narrative/thematic focus with its ending

[abstract sphinx]

Please delete this channel

Or rename it asa

Please just be like gta6 and only evolve the game

No more games ark

We've had enough

I DEMAND this channel is deleted at once

[ancient glade]

gta6 before ark2

[untold ingot]

Luckily for everyone here, your demands mean nothing

[sterile knot]

Nah because gta 6 has actual recent content and trailer shown. And people actually give a shizz about the game .

[wispy edge]

ark 2 will be very different if i remember right

[boreal trench]

Ark 2 never coming out

[elder olive]

Honestly 1 thing i hope this game has is better building alignment. my crosshairs should be where the structure piece should go. Like minecraft.

Roofs are a pain to align

Always going to where I don't want it to go

[arctic forge]

Ark 2 will relase

When the dinosaus revive

[lost lark]

2040

[boreal trench]

😭

[supple cloak]

ark 2 is a scam, don't fall for all this and don't even spend money on it (if it comes out). Vin Diesel doesn't even comment on the game itself, although all the money comes from him. And the Publisher in my opinion didn't show anything, only a trailer recorded by AI Buahahahah

[lost lark]

At this moment i don't care about ark 2 the most important thing is that asa will be improved with the ue5 update and we enjoy it until Ark 2 is released at some point

[daring jetty]

its just propaganda ark 2 is not real

[daring jetty]

actually thats pretty reasonable 🍭

[untold ingot]

The money comes from Vin diesel? What sort of mushrooms did you eat. Actors in video games get paid to act 😂. And the trailer was made long before Ai was able to be used to make video. You are kinda dumb 😅

Unless you think ark2 is Aquatica, in which case you are really dumb

[harsh spear]

trailer was made long ago before ai was able to be used to make video? are u high?
ai was already being used in lord of the rings.

[untold ingot]

... Cgi is not generative Ai.

[harsh spear]

strawman more pls

[untold ingot]

... This argument is kinda dumb.

If you classify any matrix multiplication as Ai, then sure. Otherwise no

If you start comparing old Ai (ml) with new Ai all you do is confuse yourself

That's the problem with using Ai as a catchall term. You have people thinking linear regression is Ai 😂

[harsh spear]

u couldve said generative ai so thats on you

[untold ingot]

Humans are good at context. If you read that my reply was a REPLY and read the prior message you would have seen that it was implicit.

[harsh spear]

no

its kinda obvious that the trailer of ark 2 is made by ai

thats why we are unsure if the game even exists

[untold ingot]

If you are talking Aquatica then yes. But that's not ark2

Ark2 trailer was made in ue4 engine

Retconning everything to Ai doesn't make it true

[harsh spear]

it was made in unreal engine 5. but its obvious that those things u see in the trailer arent game assets or gameplay footage. so after all, its just renedered in the engine to make the appeal.

[untold ingot]

... And you think that makes it Ai generated? Are you high?

[harsh spear]

i think its generated using ai technology because why even bother doing it with non game assets when it would be easier to just make game assets so u only need to create them once. but no, they went the quick way which implies that its using ai.

[cold garden]

When

[untold ingot]

... What Ai specifically. It was not generative Ai. That wasn't capable of producing that kind of output in 2020. If the Aquatica trailer is anything to go by it's not capable of that even now. I think you are just talking nonsense and don't really know what you are talking about 😂

They literally reused enough stuff from ase to make it obvious it's not ai

[harsh spear]

mocap + cgi f.e.

whats there from ASE ?

[untold ingot]

Motion capture and cgi is not generative Ai. Which was the topic I question. If you are totally against using motion capture and cgi, don't use a computer

[untold ingot]

Give the trailer another watch 🤣

[harsh spear]

just did. nothing from ASE to see

[untold ingot]

... Lol

[harsh spear]

back to strawmanning. i didnt say generative ai

[untold ingot]

That is the Ai that was being discussed... If that's not the argument you are making why are we even here...

You are arguing against a point I didn't even make 😂

[harsh spear]

no ? are u high? all u said was that ai wasnt capable of making videos when the trailer came out which is simply false. there is way more ai is capable of doing than what weve seen from the shitty aquatica trailer which btw is much worse than other stuff ive seen on yt.

[untold ingot]

The generative Ai was implicit...

Again you are making an argument against something I didn't say.

Either way, I do make a distinction between generative Ai and machine learning. Most cgi/motion capture/other done before 2016ish is what I class as ML. Not Ai.

[harsh spear]

what did they reuse from ASE in the ark 2 trailer ?

[harsh spear]

what are u refering to ?

[untold ingot]

Watch it again I guess

[untold ingot]

That they used no "ai" to make the trailer. There is so much in cs that can be classed as Ai that if you use the most basic definition than everything is Ai.

[harsh spear]

is that your only argument u can bring up ?

[untold ingot]

Yes, because anythinf else is obvious

[harsh spear]

i dont even know what u mean by reusing. do you mean from other cgi or from actual game assets

[untold ingot]

Actual game assets

[harsh spear]

like what though? everything is cgi or mocap in that trailer

the pteras are also different

[mossy grotto]

When the gene will come out

[true viper]

What did I just read lmao

[true viper]

Because it’s a new model

The two trailers we’ve gotten are cinematic, most likely the existing game assets just with an extra level of rendering typically associated with films.

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[stray elm]

My brother in Christ, that's not how generative AI works.

-Wildcard is known for outsourcing their assets, since 2015.
The ARK-2 rex model and saddle are confirmed to be outsourced by another studio years ago.
The other creatures in the trailers are likely outsourced as well.
-The environmental assets are probably all free UE5 megascans. That anyone can install for free.
-Vin's face, and the rest of the humans were likely scanned, most likely using MetaHuman's built in facial scan feature you can do on a phone.
None of this would require AI, not looks like it's generated by AI.

[stray elm]

CGI, also known as Computer-Generated Images, is just computer made images/frames.
This can, and does include video games. As every frame is in fact generated by a computer.
As my bullet points above point out. They've likely outsourced a majority of the creatures, if not every one from the trailer, and just used UE5's free assets.
Then they proceeded to animate with said assets to make the trailer after making the environments.

To but it bluntly, anything that can be considered 'generating' images or frames from your computer, is CGI.
Animations, video games, etc.
Mocap would also fall into this as it was generated via frames, on a computer.

[untold ingot]

But that obviously means it's Ai generated right

And I must be high to suggest otherwise

[stray elm]

To be fair, they never said 'generative AI'
But also, to be further fair. Saying the trailer was made by AI would mean it used some form of generative AI, so that counter argument goes out of the window.

[untold ingot]

Well, there is technically Ai (ml) in most cgi processes.

Even the email spam feature is technically Ai.

That's why I hate that buzzword 😂

[stray elm]

True. But I feel like that's being semantic.
Generative AI I believe is anything to do with an AI that can generate images, videos, etc.

Basically the ones that have the most drama and uproar.

Like software's that can create AI-generated assets.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, that was in the context 😂

[stray elm]

Which 95% of the time looks dogshit.

[untold ingot]

People believe Ai is more capable than it is 😂

[stray elm]

Reread the entire convo and honestly, I have no idea what Siggi's point was.

[untold ingot]

He was trying to be smart and pick a fight.

[true viper]

me when computers use algorithms: 🤯

[untold ingot]

Computer add 1+2. It's ai

Fr that's how I feel people think about software now

[spark fjord]

is ark 2 even being worked on?

[true viper]

Probably not development wise, at most maintenance if I'm being charitable. If only to think positively about it, I have to imagine whatever third party studios Wildcard was contracting for art assets like models and whatever else, upheld their agreements despite the repeated delays.

Microsoft could be doing a lot behind the scenes that we just don't even know about.

We'll likely learn more sometime after Lost Colony formally releases.

[stray elm]

'IF' ARK-2 is actually being built from the ground-up without any ARK-1 leftovers. I imagine they're probably working on the foundation and doing stuff with the engine internally to make sure their game and engine can actually handle all the shit they want to add.

[untold ingot]

I guarantee they are going to reuse some of the code for Ark2. Having a team need to relearn a code base when switching projects is a bit much to ask. And most of the code base for ark is generic enough that it won't make a difference

[cursive cloak]

😦

[true viper]

Most of Arks current code is bloated and hurting the game. Part of the reason why 5.5 is so necessary.

A bool is still a bool, float, branch anything UE specific is still as it is between engine versions. It's the foundational stuff locked behind C++ that needs something close to an overhaul imo.

[untold ingot]

5.5 won't fix bloat. It'll probably increase it

[stray elm]

That's not what 5.5 will help with, but sure.

Unless they themselves are manually redoing a majority of their blueprints. Then all the performance changes that 5.5 will bring is Nanite/Lumen improvements.
I really don't expect the 5.5 to bring that much of a performance improvement that they've been boasting.

[untold ingot]

5.5 is supposed to fix 5.1 bugs. It'll probably (read should) have little impact on the actual game

[stray elm]

Oh, and MegaLights, if they use those for Rag.

[untold ingot]

Tbh, I haven't seen them boasting about it much. They have kept really quiet on it. The community however think it'll be life-changing enough to make ark run on a wii64.

[stray elm]

Yeah, I don't really think it'll improve much of what's already here.

I could be misremembering that content creators boasting that it'll fix most of the performance issues.

Or just people in general in this discord.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, it definitely won't fix official from being crap 😂

[stray elm]

Like, it's not a magical end all update.
People who can't run ASA will probably still barely be able to run it after the update drops.

[untold ingot]

And performance on a good unofficial is already a tier

[untold ingot]

You mean I cant run it on my 12 year old laptop with integrated graphics?

[stray elm]

Eh, I play single player sometimes and my frames dip heavily still.

FYI, I have a 4090 and a I9 cpu.

[untold ingot]

Sp will dip. It's running a server and the game simultaneously. If you made a server on a different pc it would run like a dream

[stray elm]

Why in the gods green hell is it running single player as a server?

[untold ingot]

It's not a full server. But that is how it works. Every sp game has some sort of server 😂

Otherwise it's really bad design

[stray elm]

To be honest, I can live with the current performance of the game.
What I dislike mostly about ASA is just the art style/direction to me just feels horrible compared to ASE.

[untold ingot]

What about the art style?

I like the graphics and stuff like rock and trees. The actual dinos have been alittle bit 😕, but most weren't actually dinos

[stray elm]

Every visually shitty ASE map looks fine/good on ASA. But every decent/great looking map on ASE looks dogshit so far.
Correction, it isn't the art style. Just the artistical direction of the environments that look worse to me.

[untold ingot]

Hmm, excluding ab, I think they look better. Ab look worse but that's lighting imo

[stray elm]

Okay, let me roll quick give bullet points of my issues.

[stray elm]

-Grass is too tall on most maps, with no way to reduce the size outside of building on them or commands. Making bases with front lawns annoying to have because the grass takes up half of the screen.
-The Island has way too much orange rocks on mountains, on a tropical/forest themed map. If anything, they should've remade the mountains to be covered in grass/trees instead of orange rocks that stick out like a sore thumb.
-The nights feel way too bright. Which sucks, because they finally allowed duel wielding torches, which is made useless from the bright nights.
-Some caves feel unnaturally bright.
-The Center is missing a lot of foliage that gave the map natural lighting.
-Scorched is mostly fine, outside of Nosti's church just being a square PvP looking ass building instead of an actual church. And the wyvern trench's rocks being sandy instead of their ASE blackish burnt look.
-Aberration's lighting, as stated by you, does a disservice to the map. The green zone looks too yellow with the lighting, the blue zone is only one shade of blue instead of its multiple different shades. The red zone is the purple zone now, and looks way too lively for a place previously almost dead and inhospitable looking.
-Extinction is also mostly fine, outside of the fact the wasteland kind of blends with the Sulphur fields now with how yellow the dirt is. But besides that it honestly looks pretty good.

I have screenshots comparing different areas between ASE and ASA in the exact same CCC spots, if you want to see them.

[untold ingot]

So it's mostly lighting and too many orange rocks 🤣

[stray elm]

Yeah, like 60% of it. But there's still more like The Center just looking worse due to a lack of environmental assets compared to ASE.

And to be fair, the red/rad zone on Ab isn't a lighting issue, that is a asset issue.
Because their rocks are just purple for some unholy reason.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, but tbh that might be because it was rushed because snail USA royally messed it up. I'm assuming it's them

[untold ingot]

Yeah, the rock design in ase was better, the rock assets in Asa are better

[stray elm]

That's what I mean.
The rocks look more sleak and less low poly, because they aren't anymore. But I'd consider that graphical improvements.
Just the way the rocks look now is questionable.
And the more I work with the devkit for my map and compare assets between ASE and ASA. There's some foliage that just doesn't look as good personally to me.

[untold ingot]

It all looks relatively grainy, but that's dlss. I do like most of the trees.

[stray elm]

Need to double check the name, it's like the higueron tree. The one with the thicc af stock/staff with the branches spreading outwards in a 360% circle around the top.
But point is, the branches of that tree are shorter in ASA compared to the ASE counterpart. Which is sad, because with lumen it'd go so hard if those trees where wider in their branches to cut off more light during the day, and make forests actually properly dim like real life thick forests are.

The kapok tree also seemingly has less leaves.

Let me pull up the devkit and double check.

[vital jetty]

Ab looks bad because of everything. They brightened everything up, all the foliage looks like every other map's, and they got rid of the mushroom spore clouds, which added to the atmosphere in quite a few places. It used to feel unique, now it just feels generic.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, I was disappointed with it

[vital jetty]

Yeah, after seeing what they did to Ab I was relieved by my unjustified ban on officials. I'd have been even more upset if I waited all that time just to see how awful it was lol. At least it set me free of the Ark curse though 😮

[mossy grotto]

hi

[maiden nexus]

Hi

[smoky dust]

Hi

[celest thicket]

holas

[drowsy zephyr]

What happened to ark 2? I thought they said it was gonna release end of 2024 lol

[neon rock]

Ark 2 is not real 😭

[astral solar]

gta 6 before ark 2 is gonna be wild

[sturdy rover]

They gonna wait for the gta 6 hype everyones going to play that before ark 2

It also gives them enough time to prepare the game to be ready with less bugs and stuff

They will make it perfect

[tame geode]

Bless your heart...

[graceful glacier]

Can I just make my own version of ark 2

I just need source code of asa who's gonna notice anyway

[untold ingot]

You probably don't even know how to code, so no one would notice

[untold ingot]

It's funny people think wc and snail care about gta6 😂

[graceful glacier]

I do actually

[untold ingot]

? Have you made a mod

[sturdy rover]

its just my oppinion m8 but its sure their sells will be not the same when everyones attentions stuck on gta 6

[untold ingot]

I honestly don't think everyone's attention is in gta lol

[sturdy rover]

minimum 80 percent tbh

[untold ingot]

3.3 billion estimated gamers, 215 million estimated gta5 sales. Not even close to 80%

Closer to 6%

Just because you like crime simulators does not mean most people even care about it

[blissful perch]

Rockstar is a well loved studio and GTA a well known series. But I agree it’s a bit shortsighted to assume even the ark playerbase has an 80% overlap with the gta playerbase

[untold ingot]

The ark playerbase doesn't long term overlap with any game

[blissful perch]

It has some overlap with other big multiplayer survival games, but those projects (all except for rust and Conan afaik) have largely failed to retain large bases

[untold ingot]

In a decade the only significant reason for loss of players was wc and snail decisions 😂

[blissful perch]

One of the strongest reasons imo for ark’s continued existence is the niche it’s carved for itself

[untold ingot]

Gta might have a bunch of following, but it's not th type of game tht most of those players will play long term

[blissful perch]

I’d say even short term

There’s just not that much overlap in the two games

[untold ingot]

Even dune won't make a dent. People say this type of thing everytime there is a game that they think is slightly related to ark game style, but nothing ever happens. Literally the only thing that'll kill ark is snail and wc 😂

[blissful perch]

There might be a day someone figures out a better ark game, but it hasn’t yet happened

It is amusing people assume every new game they’re heavily anticipating is somehow the game that every ark player is going to quit ark or pass ark 2 over for

[untold ingot]

They all care about gta only because it'll probably be the only game in the last 2 years tht doesn't flop on launch 🤣

[blissful perch]

Idk, a lot of good stuff came out in the last two years that isn’t the biggest ticket AAA stuff. But it’s prolly because a ton of ark PvP anarchy lovers also love GTA

[untold ingot]

I haven't really heard of anything worth getting in 2 years 😅

[orchid furnace]

Hi

[fallow niche]

@sleek notch #1110949794907684965. This channel is for Ark 2, not Ascended.

[sleek notch]

Ok thank you

[spiral sundial]

You mean a game that doesn’t exist has a channel

Nice

[untold ingot]

Well you are here

[leaden lynx]

c

[zenith sail]

Ark 2 is the friends we made along the way...

[tired pawn]

i think ark 2 will prob come out in 2085

so like, not too bad

[proper anvil]

dev team is incompetent unreal engine is so incredibly hard to work with to them despite it being designed to be easy to work with. so massive delays yush

I remember when they made an announcement about how its so hard and how they need a lot of time to transition. but if I recall people called them out on it so they changed the post lol

basically devs prob trying to get paid for less (act like theyre working) most likely

my view tbh esp with how poorly optimized and broken this game is. can be

[harsh spear]

im curious if they shot themself in the foot by shutting down ase official servers. cuz some people said they wanna use ASA for the financial funding of ark 2 but i dont really see it being particularly successful but who knows, maybe there is enough people buying mods and pay2win creatures.

[proper anvil]

what they did was outright demonic. esp with making the announcement the day before april fools after hyping everyone up for ark 2 release that year

and be like haha we are actually rereleasing the game and making you all pay $80 dollars for it if you want to keep playing ;)

[stray elm]

That's not a 'some people say' thing.
They flat out, objectively confirmed it in one of the first ASA crunch reveals.

[harsh spear]

ok fair but even when its official being said, it doesnt mean that its inherently the truth.

[proper anvil]

so you will believe what you want to believe even if wc/snail games says it themselves

[stray elm]

Their last paid product was the Genesis pass before that. And that released in 2019, where hypothetically a majority of the purchases were made.
Then 2021 with Gen2 releasing could've boosted the sales for the pass, but probably not enough for them to survive three years later.

[harsh spear]

u should always think for yourself. and im under the impression that they made so much money from ASE that they wouldnt need ASA for additional funding.

[proper anvil]

I wonder how hello games does so well with no mans sky with no paid dlc with constant dlc releases

[stray elm]

Should be noted, ASA was released after Shi-Hai was confirmed to have spent most of Snail Games own money on a car business that went out of business. Losing all of that investment.

[proper anvil]

snail games is where most businesses and games go to die

[stray elm]

Constant promotion, and the reputation of being "that" one dogshit game that actually came back to become great.

[graceful glacier]

Can someone buy out wild card from snail games bro

[steel sinew]

yall acting like i'll let ark go to shit

[spring shard]

just preordered ark 2 lets gooooooooooooo

[primal ridge]

I think ark 2 will nether released...

[untold ingot]

They technically did. For most game companies what they made in ase would be enough to fund any future project, but snail lost it all on a bad electric vehicle startup

[pine star]

ig nothing can replace og ark

[untold ingot]

A healthy lifestyle and a job cam

[tribal chasm]

Maybe they can add a dino that can only tank x turrets at once, a bit like the original Trike -- having to carefully aim the head towards the turrets (else the rider gets deleted)

I think one of the worst decisions they made was the TLC for Stego, where it went from being very hard to raid, to 'casually walk into 100 turrets with little thought'

[scenic thicket]

when ark 2

[untold ingot]

They don't tho, even a capped one. That's why tek turrets are big, because they'll kill you off a stego with the splash damage

[tribal chasm]

Ah, did not realise it was changed in ASA,
my last memory was Gen2 launch, using a crappy 30k health stego to solo tank an 100 turret wall (swapping/aoe healing stego though)

[untold ingot]

You can soak that much with time and healing. But it's not as simple as you made it sound. People do that with 30k hp stegos too

[solemn hemlock]

make all bugs climb walls and all flyers swoop, and glide.

[untold ingot]

Make rabbits grow swords in their hands

[true viper]

All flyers gliding would be nice

[molten flicker]

Fix this game before making a new one🧠🤡

[blissful perch]

Would also be nice to make movement more fluid for enforcers and make gliding a bit tougher to get upward vertical momentum with

[round wedge]

Do enforcers usefull Plsss

[true viper]

Yeah more things should be able to turn in place, strafe and glide if it's believable that they could

[spark fjord]

ark 2 is actually the friends we made along the way

[vocal bloom]

Is ark 2 ark evolved?

[worldly garden]

Ark Evolved is Ark 1 the original

[prime fossil]

Why ark2 it’s the same thing

Like if gta had that much consistency I’d be happy but ark hell nah

[blissful perch]

Agreed, since a general fluidity of movement would add so much to the experience. Would also be nice if tames like spiders could get a movement rework

[worldly garden]

We don't really know anything about Ark 2 yet.

[stray elm]

What are we on about?
ASE/ASA are both ARK-1.
ARK-2 is a separate product from the previous two.

[hollow wolf]

if ark 2 gon have trash pvp its gon flop so bad

[blissful perch]

…doesn’t ark 1 have trash pvp? It’s doing ok so far despite that

[prime fossil]

True let them just stay on asendant then after 10 years make a new one

[scenic thicket]

when ark 2

[ornate ingot]

never or when you're 80

[scenic thicket]

damn

[ashen anvil]

ASE was unbalanced and toxic at times but still playable, PVP on ASA is a ghost town, either you play with Bobs Tall Tales, or you don't play PVP.

[blissful perch]

Well I won’t argue in favor of the p2w content choices, so that’s fair - but is that trash PvP, or trash monetization?

[granite cipher]

i couldnt agree more

[true viper]

Showering is the better alternative

[zinc marten]

weeeeeeeeeee

[umbral spade]

The pvp on asa is absolutely trash it got me playing ase just to play pvp cuz pvp on asa is no go

[tribal chasm]

In the pinned messages, there's some pictures of what Ark 2 bases might look like

I am interested to see what a PvP style base would look like, the display bases don't look very pvp orientated at all

[blissful perch]

Any particular or specific reason?

[versed thunder]

• less maps ( less dinos and stuff)
• no speed
• the only way to get fps is by making your game 144 pixels
• the phisyc of the game is weird

The only good points I see rn is the build

(Comming from a ase pvp player who started to play asa recently)

[blissful perch]

well content I presume is fixable with patience, considering ase has 5+ years of lifetime over asa...weird that speed is seen as a hard requirement in asa pvp though

you'd think speed gremlins with ping being near impossible to hit would be a bad thing

though you won't see me knocking asa performance concerns...it's been rough (server side and with the spec requirements)

[tribal chasm]

I have not played ASA, but immediately it was offputting to see people with almost forced builds with high weight/fortitude

It feels the levelling up system is so busted that it may as well not be customizable at all, rather just flat points per level in each stat

[harsh spear]

i agree with this. stat-systems are something many games are based on and honestly i dont see it ever being a positive for the game.
the only thing it does is make u min/max which often ends up in that one optimal build and everything else falls behind.

a much better attempt would be having routes ( specialization paths ) that lead u into a build that has different benefits compared to another

that being said though, in a game like ark it might actually be beneficial to not have any customization because there is so many different areas in which u need to excel at at different times, it would be more meta to be able to swap builds than to actually commit to a build

i think what could be cool though is having it where u can gain benefits for a specific creature by maining it ( riding it often ) killing stuff with it often. which would make u be more effective with that creature. this would make it where sometimes u wanna be the croc guy or raptor guy or whatever and u can excel at that by breeding that creature and its something u naturally do based on having good tames on said creature.

its something i often did when i had a good tame is just making sure that creature becomes high lvl and using it to explore the map.

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[lapis inlet]

Ark should just focus on ark ascended.... add stuff from ark 2 into this current ark

[cursive tartan]

make ascended run well first

[fallen fiber]

false

they should focus on ark 2 even if it is a myth

because we really didnt need asa, so putting things from ark 2 into asa is just pointless

[true viper]

There is an argument to be made about the necessity of ASA so far as learning how to use new systems in UE5 like Nanite and Lumen, and new gameplay features before Ark 2 comes out.

That’s part of what ASA has been already in the form of BTT and Lost Colony it looks like. What’s the real killer is that we’re almost 6 months past the point where we should have gotten an update about the game.

[untold ingot]

That is the argument wc made

As far as the delay in news. I'm pretty sure there is some major internal conflict rn

[harsh spear]

sry but u dont make a game to learn how the engine works. u first learn how the engine works and then u make the game.

[stray elm]

You...literally do.
Plenty of indie developers make small products to get used to an engine.
343/Halo Studios is (supposably) making a Halo: CE remake on UE5, to get to know it better before they make the next mainline title on UE5.
The whole concept of early-access is to allow developers to learn more about their engine, while taking feedback from their community to help improve the end product. I.E Baldur's Gate 3's early-access.
Crysis remasters is to help requinte Crytek in the new stuff in their engine, before they work on Crysis 4.

Dungeon Defenders 1 was on UE3.
UE4 came out around March of 2014. Making it a fairly new engine when Wildcard was formed, and the earliest iteration of ASE was made.
That would've been, by all accounts, them learning the engine while making a game.

[harsh spear]

well yea learning by doing but u dont make a seperate game (ASA) to then learn for (ARK2). Thats not typically what leads u to make that decision. U would learn those feature in the same way by creating ARK2 and i think its likely we see early access for that game too.

[stray elm]

Arguably Valve did the same thing.
Half-Life: Alyx was Source 2's first ever full scale product. And with recent leaks, likely was a testing ground for their next Half-Life product.

Wildcard more or less just tried to do a more larger scaled version of what Valve did with Dota 2.

[harsh spear]

i mean u can argue everything u do in game development is a testing ground and everything makes u learn and become better at it. but to say that ASA was good because the devs would learn how lumen or nanite works isnt a valid reasoning because they would learn those features when they wouldve made ARK 2 from the beginning

[stray elm]

But that wasn't their only reasoning. They've stated this.
Them learning UE5 more was just an added bonus.

The actual main reasoning why ASA exists is simply money.
Because beforehand, their last paid product was the Genesis pass, which came out in 2019.

And without statistics from them, it's hard to say if Gen2 actually boosted its sells. Or if most of the Gen2 players just already bought the Genesis pass for Gen1.

[harsh spear]

im not refering to wildcard though im refering to vagabonds original statement of the necessity of ASA. and its not a necessity for the game to be made to learn UE5 features because ARK 2 wouldve lead to that same progress.

[blissful perch]

“There’s an argument to be made” imo can be better read as “there might be some benefit to asa coming out ahead of ark 2”

Most of us I think can accept asa wouldn’t exist if snail hadn’t made…choices, and WC had a bit more runway to develop ark 2

[stray elm]

Yeah, I can see that.
Like yeah, they'd probably would have an easier time now making ARK-2 then if they went head first into it.
But they likely went head first into UE4 with creating ASE, since the time UE4 released and ASE released is less then a year.
ASA 'is' needed though for funding.

[blissful perch]

To that point I do think there’s benefit in wc trial running a lot of features for ark 2 in Asa ahead of time to improve their own development process for what looks to be a pretty major expansion of the Ark series’ mechanics

[harsh spear]

but necessity to me sounds like there was an inherent benefit of creating ASA before ARK 2

[stray elm]

Again, can't say much for Gen2.
But Gen1 came out in 2020, with the pass releasing I believe in late 2019.
And with Shi-Hai being....well...'him'. He blew most of their money when that car investment went up in flames.
So, at the time of 2023. It's been three years since Gen1 came out/their last paid product, and their CEO of their parent company just blew most of their income.
I'd argue that without ASA, they'd probably would've gone defunct while making ARK-2.

And currently, Snail is STILL paying off debt.

[stray elm]

Their debt is actually due by the beginning of next year.
So for Snail's sake, Shi should pray that LC actually sells well in time.

[true viper]

Yeah, there's a lot more nuance than just 'learn to use the engine' WC didn't have the necessary funds at the time to fully commit to Ark 2 because of Snail, and with ASA always going to be an upgrade to UE5, elements of Ark 2 have found themselves getting test trials. It's a pretty savy move given the totality of the situation.

[stray elm]

Again, I'd argue it was a mix of both Snail, and how long it was since their last paid product.

Just sitting on a few billion dollars while you have 100 employees and an entire parent company that also needs to fuel their own team, probably burns away real quickly without any income.

[harsh spear]

but do u think its justified for them to throw shady pay2win mechanics at us and justify it because their money investment was shit? i dont think thats our problem.

[stray elm]

Justifies? No.
Understandable? Yea.
I can understand something without agreeing with it.
And you're right, that's not our problem.
But as they're the developers, if they fuck up, our entertainment product also gets fucked up.
If we really, really don't like it, we can just move to another product that will respect our money more then Snail does.

FOMO is a real issue on PvP games, and the ARK PvP community eats that shit up. Even if they complain.

[harsh spear]

do they? i dont. and i see myself as part of that community.

[true viper]

I doubt it will tbh. It will sell well for the existing ASA player base, but won't win over any remaining ASE players, primarily because Genesis 1 and 2 won't relaunch by then. 5.5 could fix things a bit, if some existing players are worried about optimization and performance.

[stray elm]

I see people complain in general that the Fantastic Creatures exist.
Then when someone says "don't buy it then" those same people justify the 'need' of getting a Pyromane.

[true viper]

Then there's the aqautica-phant in the room

[harsh spear]

thats why i quit playing that game. and maybe others did too.

not only limited to that reason but its a big part of it

they made it nasty smart too. they waited for people to invest in the game first and then dropped the bomb. lets hope ark 2 wont end up the same

[stray elm]

In a weird, probably ass/cynical way. I kind of hope it doesn't do well.
Because either A: Snail goes under and the ARK IP does as well. With hopefully the aftermath of the members of Wildcard making a new studio and rehiring back on previous employees to make a new IP.
B: Snail networth becomes so dogshit, that Jesse/Jeremy are able to rebuy the ARK IP and Wildcard, and get away from the sinking ship that is Snail-Games.

[harsh spear]

tbh i dont think wildcard will be able to buy themself out. snail is probably smart enough so they can get the financial success through them.

best that can happen is them taking a hands off approach like they did in ASE

[true viper]

Personally, I hope for the ladder. I'd rather have the rusty golden handcuffs be broken than not.

I personally know a few people at WC, I wouldn't want to see their jobs vanish

[stray elm]

That's why I hope for the ladder as well.
The former is less realistic to expect all of the 100-or-so employees to get into the new studio.
I'd feel horrible if anyone was left behind from WC.

[harsh spear]

what does snail actually control btw? do they have ARK copyrights and control wildcard studio employees? or would wildcard be able to make a different studio and a different game ?

[true viper]

Snail owns the rights to franchise

[stray elm]

But it'd be really funny if the ladder option became true.
From my understanding (which is dogshit) since Snail is a public company, Jesse/Jeremy can still invest into Snail's stocks.
If LC tanks and they're now in the negatives due to being FORCED to pay off their debt, the worth Snail will be would be so comically low, that WC may be able to buy the ARK IP/WC back.

[stray elm]

They own the ARK IP, and the Wildcard studio company.
They likely 'could' tell Jeremy/Jesse what to do. But there's been at least one confirmed case of most of the WC employees striking during ASE.

[true viper]

The sooner snail is removed from the equation, the better it is overall

Ironically, even with the strategic benefit of using UE5 for ASA and testing Ark 2 related stuff, the lack of a new release so long after the first game was 'finished' hasn't had an overall positive effect.

[stray elm]

I kind of wish honestly that they never made TAS.
Because that was their own personal money.
Feel like that should've been saved for a any emergencies.
Because it would suck if Snail's worth DOES plumet, but Jesse/Jeremy don't have enough still to buy out the ARK IP and WC.

Or, at least wait to make TAS until after they regain their IP.

[harsh spear]

but if they control wildcard studio, cant the employees just leave and make a new studio ?

[true viper]

Yeah they can, but not with the IP

The only reason Snail can make Aquatica at all is because they own the IP

[stray elm]

Yes, but as stated above they wouldn't have the ARK IP.
And realistically, not everyone from WC would likely make it into this new company, since this new studio would probably be tight on a budget.

[true viper]

It wouldn't a smart thing to do in any respect

[tribal chasm]

Why is it they are so bent on makin bad decisions for Ark the in first place?
You have a cheeseburger everyone wants, and you keep adding hair/refusing to remove hair from it, why

[stray elm]

Only situation I can see it being viable, would be an complete last ditch effort.
Snail going under, and for some reason not being able to buy the rights to WC/the ARK IP.

[stray elm]

Because the owner of Snail-Games is, to put it the nicest, most completely professional way I can say this, that'll still likely get deleted.

He's a man-child.

[true viper]

Snail is afraid of losing the only IP they have which makes them profitable (at least use to). So long as this iteration of Ark, gameplay wise, is the only viable form of game than the monopoly isn't endangered.

It's a very flawed mindset, and just my opinion that this is in part a reason for why things are as they are

[stray elm]

Yeah.
But that doesn't fail them from making bad decisions that then proceed to endanger the IP.

[true viper]

I have every reason to believe that WC wants to make a new game, they themselves keep talking about Ark 2, but Snail really is the chief force that's preventing them from committing to it full time again.

Which is why when I dawn my tinfoil hat, Aquatica is such a fascinating thing

[stray elm]

....in what way?

My eye made a squashy sound when I blinked.

[true viper]

I'm not above believing that Snail might be trying to push WC out of developing the franchise going further. This is the first time that Snail themselves have directly made content for the sandbox games. My going theory is that Aquatica tanks, further plummeting the stock, and when they need to liquidate some assets, they get rid of Wildcard and retain the rights to the IP.

I would like to be wrong, and hope I am. Snail hasn't proven themselves to be trustworthy enough to think kindly of them or their actions.

[stray elm]

They have been talking about replacing employees with AI for years now.

[true viper]

Yup, and so long as they retain the rights to the IP, they still have a financial pulse.

It's an economic hostage situation to a certain extent

[stray elm]

Also, that'd be like the most 1D chess move I've ever heard.
"Ah yes, we tried to make our own ARK content, but see it has failed. QUICK! Let's get rid of the employees that have been making ARK content for a decade that we just experimented with trying to replace, and saw it failed!"

[true viper]

No one said they were savy

[stray elm]

True, this is Shi-Hai we're talking about.
Man has room temperature IQ.

Honestly, probably closer to a freezer.

[harsh spear]

its kinda funny how the reason for snails control was caused by jeremy's non compete making a different studio and now it seems like that one good thing that could happen to save the IP.

[frosty bone]

This is still being made? I thought they discontinued it like a year ago.

[stray elm]

So, common misconception.
But that whole lawsuit was already paid off by WC themselves before they got bought out.

[harsh spear]

okay but it doesnt change the fact that this was still resulting in the same fate which is needing money to keep going.

[stray elm]

Wait, nope. Sorry. I'm wrong.
Had to relook it up.

[harsh spear]

if they were to leave and make a new studio the cycle would just repeat itself

[stray elm]

Also, thank fuck non-competes are no longer a thing in the US.

[stray elm]

Unless they just don't accept to be bought out.

[true viper]

Either way, 5.5 and Lost Colony will hopefully be sucessful for Wildcard themselves

It's the first canon story expansion for ASA, and will have Ark 2 narrative content to sink our teeth into. It's something to look forward to.

From what I've seen of people sharing bits of the 5.5 kit in my server, there are some neat new things that people will be able to take advantage of.

Stuff that lends itself to atmosphere and what not. Good things.

[stray elm]

God, can't wait to see what shit they decided to explain for Helena suddenly being human again. And Arat Prime being the new birthplace for the ARK's, instead of Sanctuary.

[true viper]

So long as it pushes the needle closer to Ark II, that's all I care about

ASE/A lore aside, I'm most looking forward to the element powered factions

I want to know what they're all about

[stray elm]

Helena suddenly being human would be ARK-2 lore.

And either way, we'll see how it goes when it actually releases. But if LC's narrative is lacking, then that isn't a good sign for ARK-2's narrative as well.

[true viper]

Possibly, not not entirely

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[solemn hemlock]

if ark two gets an ocean and tusoteuthis they should be able to crawl up on land haha

for no reason at all ofc

[desert marlin]

ark 2 is gonna come out is 1742bc spread the word

[hot star]

so its already out?

[proper goblet]

Yes,
It's called ark survival ascended

[hot star]

No bro

He said its gonna come out in 1742bc