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Ark: Survival Evolved

Lutherf

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Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.
 
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Me and my friends played it. Its a huge time sink to get anything worthwhile. To the point where if you aren't sinking in 5 hours daily, you aren't really going to progress. I have given up on it since I simply don't have enough time for it at the moment.
 
Me and my friends played it. Its a huge time sink to get anything worthwhile. To the point where if you aren't sinking in 5 hours daily, you aren't really going to progress. I have given up on it since I simply don't have enough time for it at the moment.

I can see that happening. It's definitely not a game you can jump into and play casually.
 
Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.

My 21 y.o. son plays it and is addicted to it. He gripes and moans how hideously difficult it is...and back he goes to the game again. I've got no room to talk - I've been a gamer since Pong first came out, and I was a board gamer before then. The name "Avalon Hill" should say everything anyone familiar with the company needs to know.
 
Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.

I have had it installed for oh... 5 months maybe. I played it a little. their server thing was annoying as at first you couldn't tell what server you had a character on. they finally had a thing for that.
What I don't like now is you have to install some anti cheat software in order to play on a official server. I'm all for preventing cheating.. however I don't trust this kind of software some in the past have had root kids , gathering info it didn't need to be gathering and causing problems with other software.
 
I have messed around with it a little. It seems too tedious for me, personally. Maybe I am just not patient enough for those kinds of games.
 
My 21 y.o. son plays it and is addicted to it. He gripes and moans how hideously difficult it is...and back he goes to the game again. I've got no room to talk - I've been a gamer since Pong first came out, and I was a board gamer before then. The name "Avalon Hill" should say everything anyone familiar with the company needs to know.

Avalon Hill reference gets you a like. Squad Leader and Diplomacy where two of the all time great board games.
 
Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.

I played it a while ago. takes for ever to take larger beasts and a clan kept wiping me out. has definite promise though.

7 days to die is another interesting survival game
 
Avalon Hill reference gets you a like. Squad Leader and Diplomacy where two of the all time great board games.

I sucked at Squad Leader, not bad at Diplomacy, but my all time favorite board game - heck, maybe even all time favorite game period - was Third Reich. I was always better at divisional-scope-and-above games, but the tactical level...not so much.
 
Is anyone playing this?
Haven't played it, want to, but am waiting for the price to come down. It was 40% off on the Steam Summer sale, but I'd like to catch it under $15 before I seriously consider it. I've seen plenty of Youtube videos on it though. Looks fun.
7 days to die is another interesting survival game
I definitely second this. I've been playing 7 Days for a while now (477 hour, according to Steam, though some of those hours were on pause menu). I think this is a very fun game on the PC, though the console versions have not gotten very good reviews.
 
I will see if I can get it on ps4


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ps

Watch the neebs gaming channel for funny videos with this


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I tried it and had the same experience you and others did about the first few hours. There are other playing that you can communicate with which is cool but I made a snarky comment about being tired of running around punching trees and they all ganged up on me and told me to go play Wow. I thought that was good advice.



Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.
 
I tried it and had the same experience you and others did about the first few hours. There are other playing that you can communicate with which is cool but I made a snarky comment about being tired of running around punching trees and they all ganged up on me and told me to go play Wow. I thought that was good advice.

The main problem I have is that when you build stuff it's "yours" and stays that was as long as you continue to play every few days. What seems to have happened is that people that have been playing for a while have taken over the whole server and the whole game space is "theirs" so nobody else can build there and if you can't build even a camp fire you're going to die quickly. The only real solution seems to be playing single player, hosting your own server or playing on a LAN with friends.
 
The main problem I have is that when you build stuff it's "yours" and stays that was as long as you continue to play every few days. What seems to have happened is that people that have been playing for a while have taken over the whole server and the whole game space is "theirs" so nobody else can build there and if you can't build even a camp fire you're going to die quickly. The only real solution seems to be playing single player, hosting your own server or playing on a LAN with friends.

Or only allow the claiming of buildings rather than "area."
 
Or only allow the claiming of buildings rather than "area."

I'm not sure how they'd do that the way the game is set up. What happens is that people will build their base and then build wood or stone columns all around "their" territory. Since the columns count as a structure nobody else can build in the space around them. On most of the PVE servers I've tried there just isn't anywhere left to build. On the PVP servers the problem is solved by other players wrecking your stuff when you aren't on. If you don't join a tribe right away you'll never last 10 minutes.
 
I'm not sure how they'd do that the way the game is set up. What happens is that people will build their base and then build wood or stone columns all around "their" territory. Since the columns count as a structure nobody else can build in the space around them. On most of the PVE servers I've tried there just isn't anywhere left to build. On the PVP servers the problem is solved by other players wrecking your stuff when you aren't on. If you don't join a tribe right away you'll never last 10 minutes.

SO the problem is mostly lack of enough servers?
 
SO the problem is mostly lack of enough servers?

Kind of.

If you switch servers you need to start from scratch (back to CLvl 1). From that point you need to be able to build at least a camp fire in order to stay alive. You can gather and eat berries without a fire but since you can't cook meat the berries do approximately nothing to stave off starvation. If people put up columns you can't even build a fire so you've got maybe an hour of game play to find a place where a fire can be built. Try doing that 10 times across 10 servers and you're probably going to get frustrated with the game.

I'm playing single player right now to get around the construction issue but a pack of T. Rex's has decided that an area pretty close to me is a good hunting ground and I haven't figured out an effective way to take them out yet. Having someone else to play with would make that task easier but then we get back to the construction issue.

The game seems to have awesome potential but there are definitely a few flaws that still need to be worked out.
 
Kind of.

If you switch servers you need to start from scratch (back to CLvl 1). From that point you need to be able to build at least a camp fire in order to stay alive. You can gather and eat berries without a fire but since you can't cook meat the berries do approximately nothing to stave off starvation. If people put up columns you can't even build a fire so you've got maybe an hour of game play to find a place where a fire can be built. Try doing that 10 times across 10 servers and you're probably going to get frustrated with the game.

I'm playing single player right now to get around the construction issue but a pack of T. Rex's has decided that an area pretty close to me is a good hunting ground and I haven't figured out an effective way to take them out yet. Having someone else to play with would make that task easier but then we get back to the construction issue.

The game seems to have awesome potential but there are definitely a few flaws that still need to be worked out.

Thanks for the explanation.
 
I've played the game off an on for probably a year. I agree with the general view here and the game does have a rather step learning curve and can be very difficult for new players especially if they do not have group support. However once you have learned the ins and outs the game becomes much easier.

I would suggest new players try some of the non official servers that have boosted xp and tame time to help speed things along. I once spent 10.5 hours on a single tame on an official server and that sort of thing could really turn away a lot of casual players.
 
Is anyone playing this?

They're calling it an "early release" though I think it's been out for over a year. The review on it were mixed but I figured I'd give it a shot and it's a fascinating game.

I had never pursued a survival game before so I really didn't have much in the way of expectations when I got it but I watched a couple of videos and it looked good. Since then I've had to watch a LOT more videos and read a bunch of blogs. The learning curve is nothing to sneeze at.

You start out on a beach with nothing but your tighty whities and no instructions. From there you have to collect various resources, build some tools, collect food, build a camp, collect more stuff, build more stuff, etc. You also have to do all this while alternately freezing to death, dying of heat exhaustion, starving and getting eaten by dinosaurs. Furthermore, when you die you lose all the stuff you had previously collected (though you don't lose the skills you have learned). After a while you can tame the dinosaurs and ride them or make them do your bidding as you build better structures.

I haven't played it too much (a couple of dozen hours) and am just now getting the hang of how some of the functions work. Frankly, the first several hours of game play were frustrating but there's TONS of stuff to do and it's becoming more fun.

-edit-

I forgot to mention that "fun" may be subjective. Right now I'm running around collecting dinosaur poo to fertilize my fledgling garden. I've also managed to tame three dinosaurs but have yet to figure out how to make them do anything other than stand there looking at me. I don't have the ability to ride them yet so I'm hoping that will change things when it comes around.

Seems like Minecraft on steroids.
 
Seems like Minecraft on steroids.

I've never played Minecraft but the first time I had to punch a tree to gather resources that's the game title that came to mind.
 
I've played the game off an on for probably a year. I agree with the general view here and the game does have a rather step learning curve and can be very difficult for new players especially if they do not have group support. However once you have learned the ins and outs the game becomes much easier.

I would suggest new players try some of the non official servers that have boosted xp and tame time to help speed things along. I once spent 10.5 hours on a single tame on an official server and that sort of thing could really turn away a lot of casual players.

It took a while to figure out taming. The first time I knocked out a dino I dumped Narcoberries into it and nothing happened so I kept punching it until I killed it. I've got that figured out now but it does take a long time if you haven't prepped in advance. I've now got a tiny little ranch going on and want to start breeding and farming eggs but this intrusion by the Rex's has meant one more hurdle to cross before I can get there.

It really is a fascinating game and unlike most others which you can dominate in a few hours. Some times, however, the problems you run into just mimic real life a little too much.:lol:
 
It took a while to figure out taming. The first time I knocked out a dino I dumped Narcoberries into it and nothing happened so I kept punching it until I killed it. I've got that figured out now but it does take a long time if you haven't prepped in advance. I've now got a tiny little ranch going on and want to start breeding and farming eggs but this intrusion by the Rex's has meant one more hurdle to cross before I can get there.

It really is a fascinating game and unlike most others which you can dominate in a few hours. Some times, however, the problems you run into just mimic real life a little too much.:lol:


That one aspect that kept the game interesting for me, it can be very unforgiving at times. No matter how experienced you are or how well prepared for a situation when something goes wrong it can end in catastrophe. This can also make it very frustrating particularly starting out.
 
I'm not sure how they'd do that the way the game is set up. What happens is that people will build their base and then build wood or stone columns all around "their" territory. Since the columns count as a structure nobody else can build in the space around them. On most of the PVE servers I've tried there just isn't anywhere left to build. On the PVP servers the problem is solved by other players wrecking your stuff when you aren't on. If you don't join a tribe right away you'll never last 10 minutes.

Wow. See. I'm intrigued. Is it comparable to rust? Or bigger? My problem with rust was it was just a death match. Same thing in dayz. You couldn't join anyone because everyone was too busy killing everything.
 
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