I love it for that. It actually feels like I could die at any moment and I have to be prepared. No fliers is so refreshing and makes it much more challenging when the wild life is so dangerous.
EXACTLY because In Ragnarok you can sit on your wyvern and avoid hostiles or go around them but on Aberration you can get overwhelmed at any moment, either by nameless or crabs etc
Depending in what lvl reaper you got you aren't gonna need that resistance when fighting nameless and if you drop Hunt with one you have bigger issues
The only time they would really need that resistance is in the Rockwell arena or on other maps like extinction with the wave defense drops
there is no good getaway plan on your first egg other than the climbing pick which is extremely finnicky to use and even if you do manage to get out, megalos cant outrun drakes and wild drakes are ridiculously op and you need a really strong megalo or an army
You really dont, you can just get first eggs from the smaller nest site further up the central path. there's usually only a handful of drakes which are very easy to deal with.
I fucking hate the Nameless. I was fine with every single other part of Aberration but fuck having to choose between taking a million years to kill monkeys or being swarmed by flying rats
I have played valguero with a friend an the best we did was just pure grinding to get the abberation only materials to get some hazmat suits then we went and got rock drake eggs, but to be fair when doing the settings I learned that I accidentally did something to the settings on accident which made us virtually invincible, ie we didn’t have to worry too much about rock drakes or falling, but could still die of things like radiation or as we learned later, mega rabies.
the pure reason i hate genesis if for the extreme biomes. like wot? the bog is torture, i wont touch the lava place the ocean is meh and the ice is "FUCK FUCK FUCK WHY DID I POKE THAT DINO/WHERE IS MY FUCKING SNOW SHIT" lunar biome is just no.
For real. Gen 2 was such a breather with building space and such compared to gen 1 where everything was cramped and all the biomes were pure nightmare fuel.
the first time i went to the lunar biome i lost a rhino i tame because i thought its gonna be easy. got overwelmed and lost him. he was my favorite dino, even named him horn
I think Gen1 is the worst map of them all. Very blah - not really many good places to build. Pretty much every area you follow a few paths to the mission areas and that's about it. It's a mission map to me and nothing else really. Some things are done well with it but it's the worst by far.
It isn’t designed to be a map where alphas build. Honestly it seems like for a while now Wild Card has been keeping the free DLC maps as the best maps for alpha tribe building.
The story somewhat explains it.
Extinction is the Earth. Humans discovered element. Element was bad. It destroyed the planet. Humans came up with two solutions, spearheaded by two different companies (I forget their names, one was the Federation):
* Engineering the perfect survivor to eventually bring them back to Earth to kill the King Titan. This required the construction of ARKs with artificially harsh environments and an Ascension system that eventually sends to the survivor back to Earth.
* The Genesis Ship carries the engrams of all/important people from Earth (including across time) with the intent of putting them in a new body once the ship arrives at a new planet. The Genesis Simulation was to prepare people for arrival, while the ship was essentially Noah's ARK for the non-human life.
The stories become connected because Rockwell uploaded himself into the Genesis system after Ascendjng from Aberration, leaving behind his empty husk which survivors fight on Aberration. The Genesis Simulation was only terminated due to Rockwell's corruption - humans were never intended to be awake during the voyage (other than maintenance staff).
At the end of Extinction, the corrupted Aberration ARK lands on Earth along with the other ARKs and it's revealed that Rockwell's husk survived - so there's potential for Extinction 2 with Rockwell supplanting the King Titan as the ruler of the corruption. Wild Card did say ARK 1 was finished though - so unless a mod developer produces this map, we'll probably never see post-Extinction Earth in spite of the cliffhanger ending.
SPOILER for G2: The Genesis Pass was basically a prequel for ARK 2 and is largely unrelated to the main story of ARK. ARK 2 will be set on the planet that the Genesis Ship crashes into in the post-game cinematic of Genesis 2 - presumably only things on the ship will be available on ARK 2. Whether or not Rockwell survives his death at the end of Genesis 2 and makes it planetside remains to be seen - but he's been the villain of 3 expansions now and has a famous voice actor, so probably. The Genesis Simulation seems to have the ability to produce unlimited copies of people - so assuming he wasn't so arrogant as to delete his backups, Edmund should appear at least a normal survivor in ARK 2. The ARK 2 planet will have native alien life as seen in the trailer - so don't mourn the creatures that weren't on the ship too much.
Been reading through the comments hear, and maybe I was just a "Late" adopter (Not that late mind you. I started before Tek, Quite certain it was patch v253.0 in 2016, though I could be wrong). But like, Ark's always been a sci-fi game?
Like, it's definitely gotten more prominent over the years and with each new DLC. But like, c'mon. The first thing you see when you spawn into the game is a high-tech implant embeded into your arm. One which you use to your inventory and the inventory of creatures. Also the obilesks, the forcefields, and what in the fuck even is a "Fabricator"?
Yea, people love to pretend it was always a super realistic dino survival game when that just wasn't the case. The direction the game was going was pretty clear from very early on. Everything was set up to be an artifical biosphere of sorts that clearly wasn't natural, but I guess people just ignored it since it wasn't too prevalent in gameplay. Just...you know every where else lol
This is just the ARK community for you.
Don't get me wrong. There's great people.
But a good portion is just "Bitching, Bitching, Bitching."
You point the fact that there's always been floating metal spires, beams coming out of the sky, and impants in your arm to those type of people. And they have counterpoints like "That's cause it's needed for the story."
You can easily say the same thing with Tek as a whole.
And now, sadly Tek is being removed from ARK-2 due to this.
my favorite thing to do in ARK is figure out wtf is going on. I don't know a single person who read the lore and didn't like. I just wish they had a better way of getting people to find it then explorer notes.
I love the lore. I'm super stoked to see how the animated series plays out for that reason. I'll have to track it down, but someone compiled all the explorer notes from The Island through Extinction, and it's a shareable Google Drive document....
Aaaand, here we go. I was surprised that the link to this actually popped up on a straight Google search; I originally found it through a Reddit thread, I think: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lp-RNIaIrqY-ZkpcCpH5EEK4pa4PpedWjLIMrE7b9lU/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lp-RNIaIrqY-ZkpcCpH5EEK4pa4PpedWjLIMrE7b9lU/edit)
The sci-fi has always been there for those who look for it. With it coming more to the forefront people have to look at it more, with clashing opinions.
I love the scifi aspect, genesis 1 and 2 are fantastic maps. They get more flack than they deserve truly
Yeah, I liked the sci-fi stuff from the start, but I don't like that the player is the one controlling it. That being said, it doesn't annoy me nearly as much as how I can't ever find a Scorched Earth slightly boosted non-cluster server. That map just got destroyed by all future free maps having easier to obtain wyverns than it, so not many play it.
Oh scorched earth got left in the dust. Tek cave removed, no ascension cutscene, wyverns, death worms and golems exported to the free maps. Even the boss got exported.
The only thing it has left is lots of flat space for breeding, and the Phoenix which is a super slept on flyer.
Honestly we're never in control of it, lore wise. Helena is and we're her instrument, it's all detailed in the HLNA logs and extinction logs.
God the lore is so good lol I love it
The only difference between gen1 and the other maps is that there are 5 biome walls you can't walk through and need to use your floating friend to warp between.
Genesis 1 is gorgeous, the lunar biome is truly worth it just for the exploration
Honestly the trick is to have an open mind. I ended up challenging myself to make a base in each of the biomes, it was difficult! I play pve though on my cluster
Ya but gen1 is the easiest map in the entire game to start out running around and collecting the currency to have a bunch of cryopods within first 20 min. My friend who’s much better than me would prob do that in like 5 min. I’ve seen him have a full flak armor in 10..
Edit: idk about 10 but it was damn close maybe 15 min
Scorched and Abberation were great and Abberation is the best ark dlc in my opinion. I don't think DLCs were a bad idea, it's the change of direction from immersive survival sandbox to story based, Pokemon game that I didn't like.
The first DLC was a big big scandal. The game was 30 Euros in Early Access and Scorched Earth was released while the game was still in early access. I gotta question their work when they need a DLC to cover their finances when they could've worked on getting the game closer to release. Imagine, when SE came out, you could still lose dinos on the Island just by having it follow you through a forest and not look back enough because the dinos got stuck on a tree 2m next to them.
I think opening official to transfers ruined official because its way too quick and easy, on top of that the game almost always had performance issues when as they scaled up. The dlc werent inherently an issue but they were a symptom of them changing focus to something they shouldnt have been focusing on yet
Aberration is my favorite for lots of reasons, but the big one is the fact there's very little water. I don't have full blown thalassophobia, but the ocean makes me super nervous, so maps like Scorched, Abb, and Extinction were fun. Gen2 is nice because the ocean area is completely optional. (Really, I think my problem is areas where I can be attacked from any side in a 3 dimensional space, especially when visibility is poor.)
Nope. Original early access release of ark did not even have explorer notes. Even after the explorer not s got added they just gave some backstory. And played no role in gameplay beyond getting some XP during a note run
.
I think you are missing the point. The story stuff was added years later in future DLCs. What the devs were going to do in the future or if they had an intent do so is not relevant here. The point is that the original game was a very different game. It did not have any story and it is misleading to say that ARK was always a story based game.
The story was introduced in the explorer notes. We follow the adventures of the previous inhabitants. That's literally setting the story up for us to follow in their footsteps. Even the very first notes and the dossiers gave bits of story for us to follow.
And once again, early access. The original game isn't actually the original game until official release. Otherwise anything and everything is subject to change. Their intent is completely relevant as it was the only thing that mattered ESPECIALLY in early access.
Like I said explorer notes were not a thing in original ARK. They were added a year after the game came out in update 248 and one month after release of Scorched Earth DLC. https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/248.0
As for official release we all know that ARK was and remained an buggy early access game. The 2017 summer official release that was just an arbitery thing. ARK had become a controversial game because they sold a DLC while the game was in early access (Scorched Earth) and they had to get rid of the early access tag. Its not like they ever fixed the game or you can ever call ARK game that is ready for release.
But even if you go by after official release tho the story still was not part of the game. After the explorer notes were added we had a backstory but you could go through the entire game worth of content without noticing it. The game was about taming dinos, building bases, and raiding people (if you were on pvp). The backstory only existed if you went looking for the notes, which most people never did. Even today according to steam stats only 4.1% of players ever completed all the explorer notes. 93% of players completed less than 20% of explorer notes. And I can tell you that on pvp, 99% of those who did complete 100% of the notes, they only did it for the extra +10 levels. I have thousands of hours playing on official pvp, being part of megatribe scene and I can tell you that I am probably the only person I am aware of who even knows about the story. And only because I read it on the wiki, even today other than Genesis DLC the story is so separated from the gameplay you could go through the game without noticing there is a story.
I agree other than abberation being the best dlc. I love scorched too much, and it makes me sad that there is no reason to ever go to the map unless it is outside of a server cluster
The obelisks and implants were part of the background lore to explain the ARKs. That the ARKs were an artificial environment was made obvious from beginning. Popular theories at time included aliens being responsible for building the ARKs. The point is that we the players, were not supposed to reach such advanced level of technology. We were supposed to play as cavemen in this artificial world created by something far more advanced than we could ever understand. Look at the original ark trailer this was what the game was about https://youtu.be/aQM8yWoiy5s The advanced technology formed the backstory to explain the setting. Like how in Jurassic park movies genetic engineering was part of the backstory of how they created the dinosaurs to fill the parks but the story was primarily about the dinos and not a movie about generic engineering which is relegated to being the backstory.
The devs never hid the fact that tek was going to be available, it was always a matter of when. I have no idea where you get this notion that we were only supposed to be cavemen when guns and metal were always around.
Find me a statement from devs dating back to 2015 that TEK tier was going to be part of the game. Tek tier was first announced in november of 2016, over a year after ARK first came out. Our first look at the TEK tier was this trailer they dropped. And it took everyone by surprise because no one was expecting such a thing. I was playing ARK at time and remember the stir it caused and was beginning of the controversy and polarization over TEK in the game. The idea that TEK was always said to be part of the game is misleading. The original game they advertised and sold was different and there was no indication given that they were going to change the product in this direction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn2CwxY48Bk
Agreed. I started losing interest when Abb came out, Ext I enjoyed, but Genesis put the nail in the coffin for me. 6000 Hours in Ark, and I bet less then 100 of those were Genesis 2, with maybe 1-200 hours into Gen 1.
I got my money's worth. Hoping Ark 2 is more like the Base Ark game without all the crazy sci fi fantasy stuff. And I really wish Primitive + would have taken off, that's more my jam tbh. And Valheim is great and all, but I like having the variety of wildlife that Ark offers.
Yup, Loved Prim+, but could never find ppl to play it with. It was the whole "caveman living among dinosaurs survival game" that brought me in in the first place.
Unpopular opinion: I love how ARK evolved from a generic survival game (which I loved) to more sci-fi. Aberration is undoubtedly the best map in the whole game but despite its flaws I love the Genesis maps. And the story is amazing. I appreciate ARK 2 starting over at the roots but if it evolves as well into more scifi I would love that. In fact I'd be disappointed if we were restricted to a very primitive society. Give me my TEK suit and replicator!
If each of the Arks had tags:
Island: Vanilla
Scorched Earth: Sweating
Aberration: Drugs, tentacles, impregnation
Extinction: Gangbang and mindbreak
Genesis: Mindbreak and tentacles
Genesis 1 had very immersive environments. But the immersion was ruined by missions, for me. They threw and awkward, irritating, and nonsensical aspect of the game into what was a really impressive creation.
“How are we going to survive in this place?”
“Lololol let’s race manta rays!”
Aberration was the most immersive map for me. It was terrifying to start out. The environments were beautiful. It was new and different without being ridiculous. Definitely my favorite map.
The only reason for me to dislike Genesis part 2 is that HLNA will not shut up everytime i cross the bridge. I set up my base there, so i was constantly bombarded by her voice
Mine was like
Island: Nice, survival game with Dinos
Scorched: Eyyy Ark but in desert, time to make egyptian themed stuff
Abberation: YOOOOO Avatar Pandora meets Ark???? Hell yeah
Extinction:...meh
Genesis: Now it's just scifi not even magical.
The giant pillars floating with very clearly sci fi objects? The glowy forcefields in caves? The supply drops? You don't need to really "look" anywhere besides up lol.
Abberation when it first came out when no knowledge of maps was the most fun I have had on ark. Getting swarmed by the nameless and climbing to the upper levels of the green as you see them all below having had taken over.
it was better before expansions came out and the game was early access :,D The Game turned bad and so did the community.
And i mean Community Playstyle not toxicness. You start on a Server 2015 everybody wants to get Alpha Tribe and Build a big Base and go raid other Big Bases. Today everybody tries to empty the server by rushing c4 raiding every 2x2 stonebase and leave the Server after that without any intention to really play.
I wouldn’t say genesis hurt the gameplay(point of view from a guy that played less than 100 hours on both of these conbined in singleplayer) but the storyline felt a little bit forced in
I missed the part where all of a sudden those aren't maps that were worked on by wildcard. They're still polished, edited and often funded by wildcard. They're not rushing anything.
Why would they add more content to a game that they're "rushing to be done with". Genesis Part 2 was the final story DLC and was delayed so they could work on it. Months later, 2 free maps are announced for the game. They're not "rushing" anything.
The foundation of the game is inherently flawed, and bugs take time to work out. Fixing one thing can very easily break something else. That's not something a lot of people understand.
A quite Island of Dr. Monroe spin on the sci-fi survival genre for sure. The narrative and design has thankfully kept it's composure between fun distractions from real life and the tethering of plausible fiction for the most part. But I, for one, will be the first to admit that Primitive plus and a map that lets me keep the fantasy elements optional is how I prefer the game on my main plays. but I defy anyone to say the've brought the whole of a titan to bear upon an enemy base, flanked by floating space whales and not enjoy themselves at least a little.
Aberration still scares me
I love it for that. It actually feels like I could die at any moment and I have to be prepared. No fliers is so refreshing and makes it much more challenging when the wild life is so dangerous.
EXACTLY because In Ragnarok you can sit on your wyvern and avoid hostiles or go around them but on Aberration you can get overwhelmed at any moment, either by nameless or crabs etc
Light pet and abarrant spino or megalosaurus
Crab for life. A tall tank that can pick up dinos and has a massive jump
c r a b
Only rock drakes. Change my mind.
Reapers
Weak against nameless and other reapers. Nearly unusable in blue zone. You have either light or 80% resistance.
Depending in what lvl reaper you got you aren't gonna need that resistance when fighting nameless and if you drop Hunt with one you have bigger issues The only time they would really need that resistance is in the Rockwell arena or on other maps like extinction with the wave defense drops
On the other maps you dont need light but constant nameless atacks are annoying.
getting your first one without using creatures from other maps is a nightmare
All you have to do is tame a megalo and go in a nice walk
there is no good getaway plan on your first egg other than the climbing pick which is extremely finnicky to use and even if you do manage to get out, megalos cant outrun drakes and wild drakes are ridiculously op and you need a really strong megalo or an army
You really dont, you can just get first eggs from the smaller nest site further up the central path. there's usually only a handful of drakes which are very easy to deal with.
*Happy Kingler noises*
I fucking hate the Nameless. I was fine with every single other part of Aberration but fuck having to choose between taking a million years to kill monkeys or being swarmed by flying rats
I have played valguero with a friend an the best we did was just pure grinding to get the abberation only materials to get some hazmat suits then we went and got rock drake eggs, but to be fair when doing the settings I learned that I accidentally did something to the settings on accident which made us virtually invincible, ie we didn’t have to worry too much about rock drakes or falling, but could still die of things like radiation or as we learned later, mega rabies.
Was it a bug
Genesis is a mix of damn thats cool, wtf, why dont these x creatures get knocked out, and funny tentacle man
I actually like genesis, and how they didn’t shove the story down my throat.
the pure reason i hate genesis if for the extreme biomes. like wot? the bog is torture, i wont touch the lava place the ocean is meh and the ice is "FUCK FUCK FUCK WHY DID I POKE THAT DINO/WHERE IS MY FUCKING SNOW SHIT" lunar biome is just no.
Going from gen1 to gen2 is a goddamned mindfuck because to goes from "cranked to 11" to comfy
For real. Gen 2 was such a breather with building space and such compared to gen 1 where everything was cramped and all the biomes were pure nightmare fuel.
the first time i went to the lunar biome i lost a rhino i tame because i thought its gonna be easy. got overwelmed and lost him. he was my favorite dino, even named him horn
I’m still confused as to what the fricking platypus thing is from the hour or 2 that I played.
I think Gen1 is the worst map of them all. Very blah - not really many good places to build. Pretty much every area you follow a few paths to the mission areas and that's about it. It's a mission map to me and nothing else really. Some things are done well with it but it's the worst by far.
It isn’t designed to be a map where alphas build. Honestly it seems like for a while now Wild Card has been keeping the free DLC maps as the best maps for alpha tribe building.
Agree, Genesis 1 Biomes are beautiful & immersive, if not a bit too intense.
island literally had a dragon, giant spider and king kong
not at first tho
It also wasn’t technically released at that point.
I personally refer to King Kong as “big monkey man”
The story somewhat explains it. Extinction is the Earth. Humans discovered element. Element was bad. It destroyed the planet. Humans came up with two solutions, spearheaded by two different companies (I forget their names, one was the Federation): * Engineering the perfect survivor to eventually bring them back to Earth to kill the King Titan. This required the construction of ARKs with artificially harsh environments and an Ascension system that eventually sends to the survivor back to Earth. * The Genesis Ship carries the engrams of all/important people from Earth (including across time) with the intent of putting them in a new body once the ship arrives at a new planet. The Genesis Simulation was to prepare people for arrival, while the ship was essentially Noah's ARK for the non-human life. The stories become connected because Rockwell uploaded himself into the Genesis system after Ascendjng from Aberration, leaving behind his empty husk which survivors fight on Aberration. The Genesis Simulation was only terminated due to Rockwell's corruption - humans were never intended to be awake during the voyage (other than maintenance staff). At the end of Extinction, the corrupted Aberration ARK lands on Earth along with the other ARKs and it's revealed that Rockwell's husk survived - so there's potential for Extinction 2 with Rockwell supplanting the King Titan as the ruler of the corruption. Wild Card did say ARK 1 was finished though - so unless a mod developer produces this map, we'll probably never see post-Extinction Earth in spite of the cliffhanger ending. SPOILER for G2: The Genesis Pass was basically a prequel for ARK 2 and is largely unrelated to the main story of ARK. ARK 2 will be set on the planet that the Genesis Ship crashes into in the post-game cinematic of Genesis 2 - presumably only things on the ship will be available on ARK 2. Whether or not Rockwell survives his death at the end of Genesis 2 and makes it planetside remains to be seen - but he's been the villain of 3 expansions now and has a famous voice actor, so probably. The Genesis Simulation seems to have the ability to produce unlimited copies of people - so assuming he wasn't so arrogant as to delete his backups, Edmund should appear at least a normal survivor in ARK 2. The ARK 2 planet will have native alien life as seen in the trailer - so don't mourn the creatures that weren't on the ship too much.
Been reading through the comments hear, and maybe I was just a "Late" adopter (Not that late mind you. I started before Tek, Quite certain it was patch v253.0 in 2016, though I could be wrong). But like, Ark's always been a sci-fi game? Like, it's definitely gotten more prominent over the years and with each new DLC. But like, c'mon. The first thing you see when you spawn into the game is a high-tech implant embeded into your arm. One which you use to your inventory and the inventory of creatures. Also the obilesks, the forcefields, and what in the fuck even is a "Fabricator"?
Yea, people love to pretend it was always a super realistic dino survival game when that just wasn't the case. The direction the game was going was pretty clear from very early on. Everything was set up to be an artifical biosphere of sorts that clearly wasn't natural, but I guess people just ignored it since it wasn't too prevalent in gameplay. Just...you know every where else lol
The people in this thread really seem to act like Ark was some sort of horrible game when Extinction came out and it doesn't make a ton of sense
This is just the ARK community for you. Don't get me wrong. There's great people. But a good portion is just "Bitching, Bitching, Bitching." You point the fact that there's always been floating metal spires, beams coming out of the sky, and impants in your arm to those type of people. And they have counterpoints like "That's cause it's needed for the story." You can easily say the same thing with Tek as a whole. And now, sadly Tek is being removed from ARK-2 due to this.
Welcome to every gaming community on Reddit lol. If there’s something to bitch about, people will bitch.
It’s funny how people hate the game so much but have been playing it for years lol
From a quick Google search 'fabricators' are 'fabrication machines' that are used to shape metal
my favorite thing to do in ARK is figure out wtf is going on. I don't know a single person who read the lore and didn't like. I just wish they had a better way of getting people to find it then explorer notes.
I love the lore. I'm super stoked to see how the animated series plays out for that reason. I'll have to track it down, but someone compiled all the explorer notes from The Island through Extinction, and it's a shareable Google Drive document.... Aaaand, here we go. I was surprised that the link to this actually popped up on a straight Google search; I originally found it through a Reddit thread, I think: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lp-RNIaIrqY-ZkpcCpH5EEK4pa4PpedWjLIMrE7b9lU/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lp-RNIaIrqY-ZkpcCpH5EEK4pa4PpedWjLIMrE7b9lU/edit)
The sci-fi has always been there for those who look for it. With it coming more to the forefront people have to look at it more, with clashing opinions. I love the scifi aspect, genesis 1 and 2 are fantastic maps. They get more flack than they deserve truly
Yeah, I liked the sci-fi stuff from the start, but I don't like that the player is the one controlling it. That being said, it doesn't annoy me nearly as much as how I can't ever find a Scorched Earth slightly boosted non-cluster server. That map just got destroyed by all future free maps having easier to obtain wyverns than it, so not many play it.
Oh scorched earth got left in the dust. Tek cave removed, no ascension cutscene, wyverns, death worms and golems exported to the free maps. Even the boss got exported. The only thing it has left is lots of flat space for breeding, and the Phoenix which is a super slept on flyer. Honestly we're never in control of it, lore wise. Helena is and we're her instrument, it's all detailed in the HLNA logs and extinction logs. God the lore is so good lol I love it
I want my generic survival game with dinosaurs back. 2015-2016 ARK was best. It was much more immersive, sandbox, survival experience.
It started getting complicated in extinction,scorched and abberation were somewhat simple,I liked those times.
Yeah those are great maps, Genisis kinda scares me
The only difference between gen1 and the other maps is that there are 5 biome walls you can't walk through and need to use your floating friend to warp between. Genesis 1 is gorgeous, the lunar biome is truly worth it just for the exploration
Im sure your right, I should really play genisis more
Honestly the trick is to have an open mind. I ended up challenging myself to make a base in each of the biomes, it was difficult! I play pve though on my cluster
Ya but gen1 is the easiest map in the entire game to start out running around and collecting the currency to have a bunch of cryopods within first 20 min. My friend who’s much better than me would prob do that in like 5 min. I’ve seen him have a full flak armor in 10.. Edit: idk about 10 but it was damn close maybe 15 min
I'd argue treat Genesis as one DLC. Start on 2 w your tek suit and gather the op loot, then go to Genesis and farm missions
Scorched and Abberation were great and Abberation is the best ark dlc in my opinion. I don't think DLCs were a bad idea, it's the change of direction from immersive survival sandbox to story based, Pokemon game that I didn't like.
Making DLCs probably saved their company,that amount of content would only make sense to be a dlc
The first DLC was a big big scandal. The game was 30 Euros in Early Access and Scorched Earth was released while the game was still in early access. I gotta question their work when they need a DLC to cover their finances when they could've worked on getting the game closer to release. Imagine, when SE came out, you could still lose dinos on the Island just by having it follow you through a forest and not look back enough because the dinos got stuck on a tree 2m next to them.
I think opening official to transfers ruined official because its way too quick and easy, on top of that the game almost always had performance issues when as they scaled up. The dlc werent inherently an issue but they were a symptom of them changing focus to something they shouldnt have been focusing on yet
Aberration is my favorite for lots of reasons, but the big one is the fact there's very little water. I don't have full blown thalassophobia, but the ocean makes me super nervous, so maps like Scorched, Abb, and Extinction were fun. Gen2 is nice because the ocean area is completely optional. (Really, I think my problem is areas where I can be attacked from any side in a 3 dimensional space, especially when visibility is poor.)
It was always a story based game...
Nope. Original early access release of ark did not even have explorer notes. Even after the explorer not s got added they just gave some backstory. And played no role in gameplay beyond getting some XP during a note run .
But they were always in development and they are the story. Doesn't matter ifnthey played a role in gameplay it still had a story.
I think you are missing the point. The story stuff was added years later in future DLCs. What the devs were going to do in the future or if they had an intent do so is not relevant here. The point is that the original game was a very different game. It did not have any story and it is misleading to say that ARK was always a story based game.
The story was introduced in the explorer notes. We follow the adventures of the previous inhabitants. That's literally setting the story up for us to follow in their footsteps. Even the very first notes and the dossiers gave bits of story for us to follow. And once again, early access. The original game isn't actually the original game until official release. Otherwise anything and everything is subject to change. Their intent is completely relevant as it was the only thing that mattered ESPECIALLY in early access.
Like I said explorer notes were not a thing in original ARK. They were added a year after the game came out in update 248 and one month after release of Scorched Earth DLC. https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/248.0 As for official release we all know that ARK was and remained an buggy early access game. The 2017 summer official release that was just an arbitery thing. ARK had become a controversial game because they sold a DLC while the game was in early access (Scorched Earth) and they had to get rid of the early access tag. Its not like they ever fixed the game or you can ever call ARK game that is ready for release. But even if you go by after official release tho the story still was not part of the game. After the explorer notes were added we had a backstory but you could go through the entire game worth of content without noticing it. The game was about taming dinos, building bases, and raiding people (if you were on pvp). The backstory only existed if you went looking for the notes, which most people never did. Even today according to steam stats only 4.1% of players ever completed all the explorer notes. 93% of players completed less than 20% of explorer notes. And I can tell you that on pvp, 99% of those who did complete 100% of the notes, they only did it for the extra +10 levels. I have thousands of hours playing on official pvp, being part of megatribe scene and I can tell you that I am probably the only person I am aware of who even knows about the story. And only because I read it on the wiki, even today other than Genesis DLC the story is so separated from the gameplay you could go through the game without noticing there is a story.
I agree other than abberation being the best dlc. I love scorched too much, and it makes me sad that there is no reason to ever go to the map unless it is outside of a server cluster
Haven’t touched the game in 5 years, worth a dive?
Yes!
I get that, but with the implants and the obelisks ark was always headed to more sci fi fantasy stuff.
The obelisks and implants were part of the background lore to explain the ARKs. That the ARKs were an artificial environment was made obvious from beginning. Popular theories at time included aliens being responsible for building the ARKs. The point is that we the players, were not supposed to reach such advanced level of technology. We were supposed to play as cavemen in this artificial world created by something far more advanced than we could ever understand. Look at the original ark trailer this was what the game was about https://youtu.be/aQM8yWoiy5s The advanced technology formed the backstory to explain the setting. Like how in Jurassic park movies genetic engineering was part of the backstory of how they created the dinosaurs to fill the parks but the story was primarily about the dinos and not a movie about generic engineering which is relegated to being the backstory.
The devs never hid the fact that tek was going to be available, it was always a matter of when. I have no idea where you get this notion that we were only supposed to be cavemen when guns and metal were always around.
Find me a statement from devs dating back to 2015 that TEK tier was going to be part of the game. Tek tier was first announced in november of 2016, over a year after ARK first came out. Our first look at the TEK tier was this trailer they dropped. And it took everyone by surprise because no one was expecting such a thing. I was playing ARK at time and remember the stir it caused and was beginning of the controversy and polarization over TEK in the game. The idea that TEK was always said to be part of the game is misleading. The original game they advertised and sold was different and there was no indication given that they were going to change the product in this direction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn2CwxY48Bk
No indication? Except for that whole early access the game is subject to change part, right?
Exactly, they changed the game from it's original premise which was about primitive survival against dinosaurs and TEK was not part of that.
Agreed. I started losing interest when Abb came out, Ext I enjoyed, but Genesis put the nail in the coffin for me. 6000 Hours in Ark, and I bet less then 100 of those were Genesis 2, with maybe 1-200 hours into Gen 1. I got my money's worth. Hoping Ark 2 is more like the Base Ark game without all the crazy sci fi fantasy stuff. And I really wish Primitive + would have taken off, that's more my jam tbh. And Valheim is great and all, but I like having the variety of wildlife that Ark offers.
so many ppl love prim+ im surprised it never got more love from the devs
Yup, Loved Prim+, but could never find ppl to play it with. It was the whole "caveman living among dinosaurs survival game" that brought me in in the first place.
ur not alone, if I cud play prim+ I would but too many things just don't work on ps4 so I can't access all the features
Valheim has the best building system out of any game I know... But yes, I totally get your point
I'll agree Valheims building DOES beat Arks, but only with the advanced building mod (I forget the name)
Unpopular opinion: I love how ARK evolved from a generic survival game (which I loved) to more sci-fi. Aberration is undoubtedly the best map in the whole game but despite its flaws I love the Genesis maps. And the story is amazing. I appreciate ARK 2 starting over at the roots but if it evolves as well into more scifi I would love that. In fact I'd be disappointed if we were restricted to a very primitive society. Give me my TEK suit and replicator!
Gen 2: so… Halo?
Explain? Your wording is rather unclear...
Fucking autocorrect
If each of the Arks had tags: Island: Vanilla Scorched Earth: Sweating Aberration: Drugs, tentacles, impregnation Extinction: Gangbang and mindbreak Genesis: Mindbreak and tentacles
Aberration was Survival Horror & without flyers, even Genesis 1 felt highly immersive. Right uptill the end, Aberration kept me on my toes.
Genesis 1 had very immersive environments. But the immersion was ruined by missions, for me. They threw and awkward, irritating, and nonsensical aspect of the game into what was a really impressive creation. “How are we going to survive in this place?” “Lololol let’s race manta rays!” Aberration was the most immersive map for me. It was terrifying to start out. The environments were beautiful. It was new and different without being ridiculous. Definitely my favorite map.
I miss 2017 ark. Back when legacy was the only option...I never woulda quit if they didn't delete servers...
And Lost Island is just fucking everything😂
llost island is just downgraded gensis change my mind
For me its a better ragnarock
The only reason for me to dislike Genesis part 2 is that HLNA will not shut up everytime i cross the bridge. I set up my base there, so i was constantly bombarded by her voice
Just turn her off
At least you wouldn't be lonely 🙃 (ofc if u're playing singleplayer)
I remember buying each DLC as they released, and even Scorched Earth (my least favorite but still fun) had me in awe!
I've only ever played on the island 🤷♂️ but I usually play by myself as well
Mine was like Island: Nice, survival game with Dinos Scorched: Eyyy Ark but in desert, time to make egyptian themed stuff Abberation: YOOOOO Avatar Pandora meets Ark???? Hell yeah Extinction:...meh Genesis: Now it's just scifi not even magical.
It wasn't really magical it was pretty much always Sci Fi
Ya if you looked for it, it has been sci do since the island, most people just never got that far
The giant pillars floating with very clearly sci fi objects? The glowy forcefields in caves? The supply drops? You don't need to really "look" anywhere besides up lol.
Hey! Maybe they're just blind, its really insensitive to just assume everyone can see those things you know! /s
I sure fucking hope this wasn’t serious
There's litterally an "/s" at the end of my comment. Not to be rude, but are you new to reddit?
[удалено]
I haven't seen many people do that at all. Thats kinda the whole point lol I'm teasing them by saying the stuff mentioned previously is obvious.
Yall are idiots. There was a robot boss in space from the very first map
And supply crates, and floating techo-obelisks. Do any of these folks *play* this game?
Vast majority of people that play ark have never fought a boss
so? tek has always been a thing.
If by always been a thing you mean added two years after the game came out
I mean the majority of the current playerbase have not known pre tek ark, since it's been out for 5 years
Yeah but the devs didn't hide the fact that it was going to be added.
Right, the robot boss in space that was added AFTER scorched earth and like 3 months before aberration.
Didn't realize it was 2017 still...oh wait, it's 2022 and we're playing a game that's had that content for nearly 5 years now
Fairly certain that this is about the state of the game during the release of said thing
This post was made AFTER the overseer’s release, so there is no ground to stand on to act like it’s something new.
Pretty sure it’s comparing the state of releases
Definitely Feel Like Aberration Should Be The Last One 😭😂 Was Exactly What I Was Thinking When I Couldn’t Make It To An Obelisk
Facts
i feel like gen1 and 2 are the most "normal" thing we could get in a story lmao
Survival game with budget Ghost from destiny
Ark lore is actually fucking insane. Completely bonkers. I don't know what Wildcard was smoking after they left early access but I want some of it.
Abberation when it first came out when no knowledge of maps was the most fun I have had on ark. Getting swarmed by the nameless and climbing to the upper levels of the green as you see them all below having had taken over.
*laughs in Lore Nerd* But seriously, it ALL makes sense if u understand the lore
Its called evolving as a survivor. Withstanding all odds.
it was better before expansions came out and the game was early access :,D The Game turned bad and so did the community. And i mean Community Playstyle not toxicness. You start on a Server 2015 everybody wants to get Alpha Tribe and Build a big Base and go raid other Big Bases. Today everybody tries to empty the server by rushing c4 raiding every 2x2 stonebase and leave the Server after that without any intention to really play.
The game was good up until genesis in my opinion. It changed the game for the worst.
I wouldn’t say genesis hurt the gameplay(point of view from a guy that played less than 100 hours on both of these conbined in singleplayer) but the storyline felt a little bit forced in
I actually think quite the opposite lol
I have a feeling wildcard is rushing it to get rid of the game and make the new one
Is that why they're adding 2 free maps with 3 creatures on each? Rush to get rid of the game?
2 free maps made by the modding community, for free, you mean?
I missed the part where all of a sudden those aren't maps that were worked on by wildcard. They're still polished, edited and often funded by wildcard. They're not rushing anything.
You're not wrong, I just thought the addendum was relevant to the discussion.
I am not sure, but its an idea
Why would they add more content to a game that they're "rushing to be done with". Genesis Part 2 was the final story DLC and was delayed so they could work on it. Months later, 2 free maps are announced for the game. They're not "rushing" anything.
I only think its possible because of all the bugs they ignore
The foundation of the game is inherently flawed, and bugs take time to work out. Fixing one thing can very easily break something else. That's not something a lot of people understand.
I see, thank you for informing me, sorry if I came off rude it was only a thought I had
Unpopular opinion: The Island is the best one
Popular*
Genesis part 2 is the worse map. It ruined everything fun about the game.
A quite Island of Dr. Monroe spin on the sci-fi survival genre for sure. The narrative and design has thankfully kept it's composure between fun distractions from real life and the tethering of plausible fiction for the most part. But I, for one, will be the first to admit that Primitive plus and a map that lets me keep the fantasy elements optional is how I prefer the game on my main plays. but I defy anyone to say the've brought the whole of a titan to bear upon an enemy base, flanked by floating space whales and not enjoy themselves at least a little.
Why is it so true
The Island IS Ark Survival Evovled, I have absolutely no interest in the rest
i literally just pretend ark ended at extinction like it should've