ATLAS - Ark meets Sea of Thieves?

[RogueTaylor]

I'm going to wait until we can spin up our own server.

Yeah I think that’s for the best. I have played a bit and now will wait till we have a server

[SithAfrikaan]

Just to confirm for you guys, the private servers are running 0 lag and great fps, like Ark on a busy ish day. Very smooth and fun.

[Chaosphere]

Getting review bombed on Steam. People are mad it is an obvious Ark mod, but costs another £20.

On the one hand, it has been blindingly obvious from day 1 that this was 'just' going to be an Ark mod. Whether that is a problem or not depends solely on personal opinion, IMO. Many of us have hundreds of hours in Ark, perhaps Ark wearing a different hat is just what we want. Again, depends on your own viewpoint tbh. If you go in and are honestly shocked to find that this game is a blatant Ark clone / mod, then IMO that's purely on you, not the game!

That said, what I am seeing online via Twitch looks pretty bad. It seems more geared to PvP than PvE, and the 'new mechanics' seem badly thought out and implemented. I'm not sure about spending that £20 anymore, if I'm honest. I've yet to see much that grabs me. Ark without dinosaurs... well, why bother... the Jurassic pArk thing was always a huge part of the appeal, to me at least. Right now this is looking like Ark, only a worse version that I'm not sure I want to play...

All that negativity aside, if some of you are having a good time with it, it'd be great to hear why, what you're enjoying, etc.

[albert]

Getting review bombed on Steam. People are mad it is an obvious Ark mod, but costs another £20.

On the one hand, it has been blindingly obvious from day 1 that this was 'just' going to be an Ark mod. Whether that is a problem or not depends solely on personal opinion, IMO. Many of us have hundreds of hours in Ark, perhaps Ark wearing a different hat is just what we want. Again, depends on your own viewpoint tbh. If you go in and are honestly shocked to find that this game is a blatant Ark clone / mod, then IMO that's purely on you, not the game!

That said, what I am seeing online via Twitch looks pretty bad. It seems more geared to PvP than PvE, and the 'new mechanics' seem badly thought out and implemented. I'm not sure about spending that £20 anymore, if I'm honest. I've yet to see much that grabs me. Ark without dinosaurs... well, why bother... the Jurassic pArk thing was always a huge part of the appeal, to me at least. Right now this is looking like Ark, only a worse version that I'm not sure I want to play...

All that negativity aside, if some of you are having a good time with it, it'd be great to hear why, what you're enjoying, etc.

I played through the worst of that negativity period and yes it was frustrating but just teething problems. Too many players in the same zone therefore overwhelming certain servers with freeports in them. But they must have split the freeports up into smaller areas. Sith, Jewels, Sneaky and I went off to Zone H7 which is medium for creatures and lots of resources. The game was fluid and reliable by then for me. Plenty of other players' loot to pick up since it was certainly tough going but still not as tough as Ark.

I think it's unfair to compare with Ark since they have done a unique thing, knitted together over 100 servers to create one map. Do you know Call of Duty 4 has code from Action Quake in it? Why not reuse good content and code, as long as the soul of the new game is innovative!

I loved my few hours on there today, even though an Alpha Vulture ended it all and I spawned at sea. I think we might benefit from playing the Official PvE rather than private as it was nice to see other players and folks were helping each other. Whilst we'll do that for sure on a private server, we'll see tiny amounts of the map doing so. I gave some random dude who helped me fight off a croc, a set of armour and a water skin and he was very appreciative. We played along side each other for an hour.

My conclusion, if dMw isolate ourselves to a private server for this then it becomes another Ark, if we play on the Official, then we will be experiencing the game for real. And think about it, other games where we will have to play with other humans like Star Citizen will be very difficult to handle if we are just used to private servers.

My view, it's already 7 out of 10. Only set to get better.

Major highlight, the Hammerheads that attacked me out at sea, so cool.

[Chaosphere]

Interesting. I've had both very good and very bad experiences of the PvP in Sea of Thieves. Not sure the game would be the same without it though so I do understand why you're saying we should PvP this one.

Anyway, thanks for your impressions mate. I'm really not sure if I'm coming or going with this one atm, so it all helps!

[SithAfrikaan]

I actually totally agree with Albert, the teething problems they're facing is NOTHING compared to what Ark was like when it started out in our community, and the PVE world server is the only way to see the map in its entirety, since it is so many servers hosted..

I'd like to see us give official a shot, but it'd have to be near the end of January since I'm on holiday for 3 weeks and won't be able to commit and you'll all accuse me of leaving the game before I even start playing it

When it runs at 60fps with 0 lag, it's got a wide variety of more interesting creatures reskinned or not, and interesting new recipes to craft, and I've only wet my feet on a raft, I can't wait for more.

[albert]

And to be clear, I am not saying a private server would not be fun, it always is. But the map on here has over 65 server instances making up the squares on the map. Each square is one server, so if we are to run a private server I'm not sure how many squares we would be able to unlock. I'm sure they've thought of the scale-ability. I relocated to the North Tundra, it's not impossible to survive, just have to do the usual Ark thing and get on with it. The toughest part is you have to leave the free port to get a land claim. You can't put your flag down on free port land. For that you need to build a raft and get off the island. That probably is the first challenge to overcome which I will not spoil for anyone by describing.

[SithAfrikaan]

This merry band of seadwellers or is that SEAMEN

[SithAfrikaan]

Jewels sleeping on the job at the back!

[Chaosphere]

Just don't give him a drum.

[Jewelz^]

I remember that boat

[albert]

After many days and nights at sea without finding a suitable island to setup shop, we stumbled upon Gracestone Island, a Lawless place but it seems to be a popular place for shipbuilding.

Sulky and OB spawned in E11 where the Island is and after a lot of messing around managed to get to the boat.

We moored up and started building, except not a bed [emoji23]. Just as OB logged off on the shipyard, the boat got destroyed. So this morning we managed to swim back to the area and make a few beds. Priority is find enough space to build a base that can be secured. The shipyard is still standing.

Tough place but plenty metal stones!

So Jewels, MkIII survived well!

[sulky_uk]

so died while trying to gather wood, couldn't re spawn at the beds as we didn't own them or something like that.....

[albert]

so died while trying to gather wood, couldn't re spawn at the beds as we didn't own them or something like that.....

Did I have to release them to the Company or something?

I can try that when I get home or OB can do it.

[SithAfrikaan]

How the heck did the boat get destroyed? All our valuables were on it.

You have to claim territory for a bed to be able to be used, if you guys die at Gracestone I reckon you'll not be able to spawn there again until you do, unless its one of the starter zones.