Ark: Survival Evolved

[charlesr]

Is anyone playing? It's early access on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One. Just downloaded the 25GB demo. Will give it a go later.

[charlesr]

[kryss]

Any comments?

[MartyG]

Had it on Steam for a while; it's okay but gets boring pretty quickly, once you've seen one dinosaur you've seen them all. The number of inputs it requires makes me wonder how they've managed to streamline it for controllers on the consoles - this one needs a keyboard.

[fishbowlhead]

Had it on Steam for a while; it's okay but gets boring pretty quickly, once you've seen one dinosaur you've seen them all. The number of inputs it requires makes me wonder how they've managed to streamline it for controllers on the consoles - this one needs a keyboard.

Or better thought out controls?

[MartyG]

Guessing you've not played it, it's mostly shortcutting commands - you'd just be deep in sub-menus on a controller, which would put you at a disadvantage with someone using a keyboard / mouse: http://ark.gamepedia.com/Keyboard_Controls

[huxley]

I had a quick go on the xboxone version, it was laggy and looked awful.

[Neon Ignition]

I've skirted it a lot due to its popularity on release on PC but everytime I delve into the player discussions it seems to be an endless ream of issues with performance, bugs, balance, community and design issues. From what I can gather updates are regular and it may pull together into something nice but it seems a fair way off yet.

[eastyy]

Seen some videos of this but i just get the impression it is just a load of elements from other games bunged into one game would that be right ?

[MartyG]

It's a multiplayer survivor game with crafting and building elements, of which, there are dozens of now (Don't Starve is my personal favourite). If you can pick it up discounted it's worth a look and it is regularly updated on Steam.

[EvilBoris]

It has a 60 minute trial on Xbox one early access, I'm glad I didn't buy it as their were no servers with spaces

[D J Kix]

Apologies for my scrambled thoughts, I don't have time to organise them:

It's available for only $12 on the Humble Bundle monthly sub. It's still Early Access, but the planned release is for this coming June.

Somewhere between Minecraft and Day-Z with dinosaurs.
Currently only has one official map.
Poorly optimised, though I understand DX12 support is coming soon.
Just when you think you're making progress in the game, a wild dino appears and tears you apart.

The standard game requires lots of grinding for leveling yourself and taming dinos, I've since found a friendly* (somewhat**) unofficial server where exp and taming rates are multiplied.
* A friendly server is key to enjoyment of this game - if not you will find your base raided and dinos dead every time you return.
** It's a PvP server, but players will not/are discouraged from attacking players that are new/low level.

While the above seems more negative than positive, I only got the game in December and have almost 200 hours - I definitely feel I got my money's worth already.

[charlesr]

While the above seems more negative than positive, I only got the game in December and have almost 200 hours - I definitely feel I got my money's worth already.

Cheers for the thoughts.
My son has been watching vids of this and is keen to get it. So some questions...
Can chat be turned off?
Or... Is there a single player mode? And if there is, is it pointless? Basically is there a way he can enjoy it without my having to supervise?

[charlesr]

Xbox version is go. I'll add some thoughts in a First Play thread when I can wrestle the controller off my son, but for now, my only comment is....

"join session........................................... ...................................." - nope.

Can't join any server, regardless of how many people are in one.

Son gave up and started an SP game.

[charlesr]

I just heard my son say "I changed the pooping interval so everything poops a lot"

Game of the year!