Ark: Survival Evolved is in no way a foul sport, however ask round and you’ll have little hassle discovering gamers who really feel upset by its retail launch. The sport has had quite a lot of issues since its launch from Early Access again in August, with server numbers and poor efficiency amongst them. This has led to a scarcity of belief between Studio Wildcard and a few members of the Ark Community, who’ve been very vocal about their dissatisfaction.
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We thought it might be a good suggestion to succeed in out to a few of these gamers to listen to their opinions, earlier than seeing what Studio Wildcard are doing to be able to enhance the sport to attempt to win them again.
By far the largest criticism levelled at Ark has been its lack of servers. At its launch, the sport had an inadequate quantity to fulfill demand, which means gamers had been left having to refresh the official server record time and again in hopes of really stepping into the sport. This was additional difficult by Wildcard’s determination to take down a number of low-population legacy servers, with out changing them.
“Honestly, I feel totally let down by Studio Wildcard,” one person tells me whereas in-game. “We had to wait over ten days for the first paid content EU server for Scorched Earth to be launched. They took away several hundred servers and gave us less than five for two weeks.”
Another person contributes, “I like their idea on the whole, but the server capability is lacking hardware wise and in the server count… They’re really letting the PC market down. It feels like we’ve been stripped for cash and now consoles are the only way to make money. So, we’re forgotten and left to fight over 700 or so spots for the entire EU community.”
Jat Karunakaran, the lead group supervisor at Studio Wildcard, denies that the workforce are displaying a choice to anyone platform. “Game content parity between platforms is something that’s important to us,” he explains. “Due to how the patching process works sometimes that parity can’t happen all at the same time, but we do our best to update all platforms to the same level as soon as we can.”
He additionally acknowledges the server points and claims that Studio Wildcard are at all times making an attempt to enhance on this entrance. You can see proof of this over the previous couple of months. The state of affairs is significantly better, with a mix of the post-launch drop off in participant curiosity and the introduction of latest servers enjoying an enormous half within the sport turning into extra accessible.
It does really feel like there may be nonetheless some technique to go, nonetheless, earlier than all gamers are accommodated comfortably. Logging right into a server, it’s nonetheless widespread to seek out most landmarks have been pillaged and that competitors is fierce over the out there assets.
According to Karunakaran, the issue with introducing these new servers is that they first need to weigh up the demand versus the anticipated participant inhabitants. This takes time to get proper, which may be irritating for followers ready on information. Regardless, he believes Studio Wildcard have already made some nice strides to reaching that tough stability.
“Since launch we’ve substantially increased the number of official servers, as well as continued to support a fair number of our legacy servers,” Karunakaran says. “We do our best to estimate the appropriate amount of in-demand servers, but players seem to continuously surprise us with their enthusiasm for Ark! Hopefully what we have now is a better balance that matches the player base interested in playing online on official servers, but we’ll continue to monitor our numbers and player feedback to see if we need to introduce more servers.”
It appears Studio Wildcard are making an effort to pay attention and enhance. They have an lively discussion board that they monitor for suggestions. They are additionally engaged on new content material within the type of updates and their subsequent paid growth, Aberration.
“In order to keep Ark interesting, new content is pivotal. Regardless of how many hours someone has, at some point it is expected that a person will complete everything they set out to do within a game and at that point they will move on to a new game,” Karunakaran says. “Ark sets itself apart by being able to add new creatures, tools, weapons, mechanics, and maps which essentially make Ark an entirely new experience over and over again.”
That stated, there may be nonetheless some scepticism in the direction of forthcoming updates from the group. When Studio Wildcard introduced Aberration could be delayed by a few weeks, gamers went straight to the official subreddit to voice their frustrations with the corporate.
“People paid for a DLC that should be released in October and now they just said ‘delayed’ but not how much,” one commentator writes, upset by the brevity of the announcement. Other gamers, in the meantime, had been fast to precise a scarcity of shock on the information, pointing to Studio Wildcard’s historical past of transferring launch dates again and failing to hit deadlines.
Studio Wildcard have teased that extra info is coming with regard to Aberration, and have given a motive for the delays, however it appears there’s a vocal portion of their fanbase who want extra reassurance. “Criticism comes with the territory. Gamers are passionate people, for better or for worse,” Karunakaran says. “We’ve come to study that a lot of the participant criticism comes from place. They love Ark and are very captivated with it, however generally that keenness comes out as anger when Ark doesn’t perform the best way they need or imagine it ought to.
“We are grateful that our group does give us nice constructive suggestions, opening our eyes to the sport in ways in which we might not even see or realise ourselves. When you’re employed on a sport each hour of your day for years at a time you possibly can grow to be blind to the ways in which different folks view your sport, and listening to the hundreds of distinctive participant experiences can paint an image that we didn’t know existed.”
It is evident Studio Wildcard are conscious of the disillusionment inside their group and are actively making an attempt to make Ark: Survival Evolved a extra welcoming place for gamers. Though they aren’t at all times probably the most environment friendly at speaking with their fan base, and gamers are shortly working out of endurance.
If Ark: Survival Evolved is to grow to be a greater group, Studio Wildcard must be extra clear with its viewers and allow them to know they’re listening to their issues. They additionally have to get forward of unhealthy information and reassure the extra vocal and pessimistic amongst their fanbase. If they can not make these amends then they threat alienating them additional, probably inflicting Ark’s present recognition to die out – an unlucky irony for a sport that cheerily reductions the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
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