And it hasn't even been that long but I'm wondering again about how this game isn't finished. It isn't refined and none of the core complaints I had when I started playing have changed. They keep adding new creatures and stuff but what about finishing and refining the controls, menus, and animations? Or is this it for retail?
Given that the game has released on PS4.. yeah.. this is it and there's just monetization based on DLC from here. A $70+ release like No Man's Sky.. but at least Ark is worth every penny.. except..
Watched the Sanata Clarita Diet because she wants to see if it is the type of thing she likes. She's not into scary shit so this might be perfect for her.
I'm not sure. It's funny yes, very classic humor that even though its easy to read.. it's still not too boring or stupid. But it is shockingly grotesque. But at the same time.. at least it is trying to be much more real than just being a generic sitcom.
I've more than doubled my tames and am still like ok.. why am I able to just park them? They never sleep or starve or go wild again because I don't need them for anything and can't make them do anything useful while playing solo. Why can't I set up guard zones? anything to make them practically useful instead of just parking them and never using them. You can't train the dinos to do anything or rather you can't do too many complicated things because.. it's just a game and you're supposed to be playing with and against people and not depend on trained not simply domesticated tames.
That and there's still no NPC villagers. Would it change the game if the player was less focused on dinos and more focused on villagers that would do most of the grunt work like taming and breeding so long as they were protected by the player and trained tames?
Actually put walls up so I can have a death pit and quick taming pit.. Have yet to make a greenhouse area. Filled the death pit with carnivores which I drop carryable wild creatures for them to kill and eat to level up. And even managed to snag a flamethrower and engram for ammo for it and an rpg if at some point I can find a purpose for it other than murdering rock elementals. But can't make ammo until I level up even more. so no time soon. I need to make a fridge soon but lost all my Ankylos and mining metal is a chore again. If there were villagers I'd only have to deal with their security rather than being mauled by random wild spawns.
There's so much other stuff to do. But none of it seems compelling because everything is so simple and incredibly tedious. Because everything takes longer when you're impatient and impetuous and keep getting all the good tames killed.. :/
Sure the game functions and is very rich in ideas and such, but that's the sum of what are somewhat crude parts.
Maybe I'm just too stuck on all the things they could add in a sequel because it is too damned tedious.. like significantly more detailed ways to make items you can then wear. And if there are villagers you could adorn them, as well as dinos.. Which Studio Wildcard seems very unwilling to do for no apparent reason.
Somehow I'm still not getting over how much this is like 8-bit Minecraft versus a proper simulation. It becomes clear when Conan Exiles practically rips off the majority of what makes Ark fun and there's no appeal to play Conan because it seems to be so much more to do in Ark.
While I say this it would make even more sense for Conan to be brutal.. and detailed. Am I crazy to have thought Conan should have looked at least as good as For Honor? or significantly better. I've wanted Ark to get real with the dinos and details in the way that each Dino could have a skeleton, meat, organs and hide that moves over everything.. a hide you'd have to dry and prepare properly.. etc. Instead of the MMO-like tap tap tap it dies then disintegrates and you get drops, why can't you harvest the bones, meat, organs, hides etc properly? Why can't injured dinos bleed to death leaving a trail which entices more predators.. apparently you aren't a regular squishy human so would it be too much to lose limbs and have them grow back over time or forcibly kill yourself so you're revived by the game with a fresh body? Like Westworld.
I keep getting stuck on if it would be too much or too grotesque to have nesting creatures and eggs etc so that the player and smaller creatures can tear into bigger creatures. Or how gross it would really be to fight big dinos with such powerful weapons. Taking bites out of each other. Or detonating massive creatures. or feeding them toxic concoctions which would cause them to die over time by being poisoned or explode from within.
What is too gross? How to take it seriously.
Santa Clarity Diet is my very far edge Since I hate (human) gore/horror. After 1 episode I can say yeah maybe I could watch the rest of the series but only because it is mildly compelling AND it is true to itself. Everything is in context.
Ark seems to lack proper context and detail for the content.
The same for your character. There's hair now. I'd never notice because I'm always seeing my character in her armor. She never bathes. She never sleeps. One of the first things that really disappointed me was that you don't need to sleep. Sure you eat and poop but forcing the player to have to sleep something like a bare minimum of 4-8 hours a day couldn't have been that hard to add. Hell Scorched Earth introduced these ludicrous storms that make it very hard to risk doing anything. Getting stuck out ill-equipped in a heat storm is usually a death sentence. It makes you require a base. There are things you could do while stuck at base but there's very little self care while at base. A safe enough place that you can knock out for several hours or return to in order to nap. You can't overeat and get fat. You can't build round dwellings.. you can't make jewelry etc. There's very little fine detail to make the game seem refined.
While I was playing on the Island it felt like I should be able to do more with the trinkets I was collecting. like Megalodon teeth. That's all but removed in Scorched Earth. Its just so god damned easy to die that it would be impractical to collect all kinds of shit and trick out each saddle with ornaments which could be lost because some stupid bullshit like a rock golem spawned on you.
Again, context.. if creatures just randomly spawn it feels too fake and like a theme park like Westworld versus a good simulation. You can track creatures in the mud.. you can expect where to find them. You could smell them out instead of being stuck with what you can see and hear.
Then just mechanical stupidities like flying mounts and all kinds of other things can be suspended in the air. And for no apparent reason Studio Wildcard makes it so you can't use arrows from your F16 fighter jet.. aka the Argentavis. Only having talons to deal damage and only being able to do damage while flying.. aka being suspended in the air.. And similarly being limited in how you can move around and battle with the majority of Dinos.. gets annoying. but it all works.
Since studio Wildcard (like so many other game studios, like Bungie) seem to be making really stupid arbitrary decisions about their game to make it harder for no reason. All I can do is imagine what the game can be like.. but it just feels like an extra layer of stress on top of the already overly stressful rules they have applied to their game.