I bought this game last week (unfortunately before the sale, but oh well) and my group (mostly DayZ-GAF of old) and myself started playing it.
A bit of our history with these kinds of games first: We played DayZ in it's heyday back in the mod, were there pretty early in it's lifespan when it was really starting to hit it's stride. We loved it, and we loved playing these kinds of games. We played DayZ for a while, and after getting bored of the stock version, we played other mods of DayZ such as other maps, Overwatch, Epoch, and others. We also enjoyed Arma 2/3 Wasteland, and other Arma 3 mods such as Exile. We sometimes delved into other games of this genre such as Rust, we had about a month where we played that. None of them have quite had the staying power of the original DayZ and it's mods back in the day. We of course played DayZ standalone for a while, and sometimes to back to it to see what's new, but we have been disappointed with the standalone.
A few months ago, Ark: Survival of the Fittest became a standalone free game on Steam. We also enjoyed Battle Royale/Hunger Games types of games such as Arma 3 Battle Royale and H1Z1 Battle Royale (now known as King of the Kill). We gave Ark SotF a try liked it for the most part, despite our group sometimes being at each other's throats during it. We played it for a while, then stopped.
Last week, we decided to get into the main game: Ark: Survival Evolved. We started o a PvE server on the original map, and were liking what we played so far, but then a couple of members of our group decided to explore a server of The Center, the other map. That map was much more impressive, and was a PvP server, so we moved to that server and started fresh.
First of all, the Center is one hell of a map. It has insane verticality, diversity in biomes, including a lava biome as well as redwood (think Endor from Return of the Jedi). There are ancient ruins, and we STILL have only seen a fraction of it. There is an entire underground layer to the map that we haven't even seen yet.
The fact that there is some kind of endgame: bosses, makes it actually feel like there is a goal to work toward. It's a long road getting there, as this game has experience and leveling up. Stats are all things such as food, water, melee damage, stamina, health, and more. Leveling up also gets you Engram points, which you can spend to learn which recipes you can craft. You won't have enough points to get everything, so you really have to specialize within your group. Often we grab recipes as necessary, and we have some different roles depending on the situation. When we are at base, I'm the hunter for instance. I go out and kill things to gather meat, hide, etc. Another is the builder/homemaker, another goes for wood/thatch, another goes for stone/flint, and the other goes for metal. These switch around sometimes based on need.
Creature variety is incredible. Just walking around in our redwood biome, I have seen Diplodocus, Carnos, giant ants, megaloceros (giant deer), terror birds, direbears, and many others. Around the whole map there is so much more, including in the ocean. We have started taming recently, getting two Pteranodons so we can scout the map and go make some long range runs. Almost every creature is useful in some capacity. Dodo birds are even useful just to be a reliable source of meat (breeding them) and eggs to make kibble (tames faster). Obviously stuff like T-rexes are great at combat, or there are giant beavers that can basically be a mobile smithy, halve weight of anything they carry, and hit extremely hard. It will be a while until we get there, but there are these huge birds called Quetzals that you can build structures on the back of. I have seen some groups flying them through our neck of the woods, often with a structure, and other people and dinos standing on top of them. It's always a fun challenge to come up with ways to fight a high-level creature. Every item has some kind of use in the game. For instance, you can make a spyglass, and while it seems like a waste of resources when you can probably see well at a high resolution, a spyglass will tell you things like what level a creature or player is, who a structure belongs to, and much more. For instance, we saw a high-level carno and wanted to kill it for the experience, so we planned on how we would get on top or rocks and try to make it get stuck trying to get us, and keep shooting at it to bring it down eventually.
I'm level 36 myself, and the rest of my group is still below 40. We still have so much left in the game to see. We took a sailing expedition around the map and saw a group that had to have had at least 20 people in it with metal bases all over the place, auto turrets, Plant Species X (a dangerous plant that can shoot at people), and so many tames. I saw no less than 7 T-rexes in one base. It's always great having short term and long term goals. For instance my next goal is to get enough pelt to make Fur armor, and go to the ice biome to hunt penguins. I need to hunt penguins because they drop Polymer, which can make Ghillie Suits.
I think if any notable Early Access open-world survival gets finished, it will be Ark. They have consistently put out updates adding new meaningful content to the game all within the year of it's launch on Steam Early Access. The dev always communicates, and is constantly fixing issues that arise. There was a bug the other day where you would get almost no resources. This was fixed within 24 hours, and while this sounds like a long time, it is tons better than some other games that took weeks or even months. A modder actually made the Center map, and Wildcard cut him a huge check to put the map in the game! They just released a major patch over the weekend, and already within 24 hours of it's release, they were talking about the beginning of September update that will have more content.
Ark is an incredible experience, and honestly feels like a natural evolution of the "DayZ" forumla, but actually refining this type of game to make it stand out from the others. One of the few gripes I have with it is the performance, but hopefully they improve this over time. I highly recommend it if you haven't played it already.
A bit of our history with these kinds of games first: We played DayZ in it's heyday back in the mod, were there pretty early in it's lifespan when it was really starting to hit it's stride. We loved it, and we loved playing these kinds of games. We played DayZ for a while, and after getting bored of the stock version, we played other mods of DayZ such as other maps, Overwatch, Epoch, and others. We also enjoyed Arma 2/3 Wasteland, and other Arma 3 mods such as Exile. We sometimes delved into other games of this genre such as Rust, we had about a month where we played that. None of them have quite had the staying power of the original DayZ and it's mods back in the day. We of course played DayZ standalone for a while, and sometimes to back to it to see what's new, but we have been disappointed with the standalone.
A few months ago, Ark: Survival of the Fittest became a standalone free game on Steam. We also enjoyed Battle Royale/Hunger Games types of games such as Arma 3 Battle Royale and H1Z1 Battle Royale (now known as King of the Kill). We gave Ark SotF a try liked it for the most part, despite our group sometimes being at each other's throats during it. We played it for a while, then stopped.
Last week, we decided to get into the main game: Ark: Survival Evolved. We started o a PvE server on the original map, and were liking what we played so far, but then a couple of members of our group decided to explore a server of The Center, the other map. That map was much more impressive, and was a PvP server, so we moved to that server and started fresh.
First of all, the Center is one hell of a map. It has insane verticality, diversity in biomes, including a lava biome as well as redwood (think Endor from Return of the Jedi). There are ancient ruins, and we STILL have only seen a fraction of it. There is an entire underground layer to the map that we haven't even seen yet.
The fact that there is some kind of endgame: bosses, makes it actually feel like there is a goal to work toward. It's a long road getting there, as this game has experience and leveling up. Stats are all things such as food, water, melee damage, stamina, health, and more. Leveling up also gets you Engram points, which you can spend to learn which recipes you can craft. You won't have enough points to get everything, so you really have to specialize within your group. Often we grab recipes as necessary, and we have some different roles depending on the situation. When we are at base, I'm the hunter for instance. I go out and kill things to gather meat, hide, etc. Another is the builder/homemaker, another goes for wood/thatch, another goes for stone/flint, and the other goes for metal. These switch around sometimes based on need.
Creature variety is incredible. Just walking around in our redwood biome, I have seen Diplodocus, Carnos, giant ants, megaloceros (giant deer), terror birds, direbears, and many others. Around the whole map there is so much more, including in the ocean. We have started taming recently, getting two Pteranodons so we can scout the map and go make some long range runs. Almost every creature is useful in some capacity. Dodo birds are even useful just to be a reliable source of meat (breeding them) and eggs to make kibble (tames faster). Obviously stuff like T-rexes are great at combat, or there are giant beavers that can basically be a mobile smithy, halve weight of anything they carry, and hit extremely hard. It will be a while until we get there, but there are these huge birds called Quetzals that you can build structures on the back of. I have seen some groups flying them through our neck of the woods, often with a structure, and other people and dinos standing on top of them. It's always a fun challenge to come up with ways to fight a high-level creature. Every item has some kind of use in the game. For instance, you can make a spyglass, and while it seems like a waste of resources when you can probably see well at a high resolution, a spyglass will tell you things like what level a creature or player is, who a structure belongs to, and much more. For instance, we saw a high-level carno and wanted to kill it for the experience, so we planned on how we would get on top or rocks and try to make it get stuck trying to get us, and keep shooting at it to bring it down eventually.
I'm level 36 myself, and the rest of my group is still below 40. We still have so much left in the game to see. We took a sailing expedition around the map and saw a group that had to have had at least 20 people in it with metal bases all over the place, auto turrets, Plant Species X (a dangerous plant that can shoot at people), and so many tames. I saw no less than 7 T-rexes in one base. It's always great having short term and long term goals. For instance my next goal is to get enough pelt to make Fur armor, and go to the ice biome to hunt penguins. I need to hunt penguins because they drop Polymer, which can make Ghillie Suits.
I think if any notable Early Access open-world survival gets finished, it will be Ark. They have consistently put out updates adding new meaningful content to the game all within the year of it's launch on Steam Early Access. The dev always communicates, and is constantly fixing issues that arise. There was a bug the other day where you would get almost no resources. This was fixed within 24 hours, and while this sounds like a long time, it is tons better than some other games that took weeks or even months. A modder actually made the Center map, and Wildcard cut him a huge check to put the map in the game! They just released a major patch over the weekend, and already within 24 hours of it's release, they were talking about the beginning of September update that will have more content.
Ark is an incredible experience, and honestly feels like a natural evolution of the "DayZ" forumla, but actually refining this type of game to make it stand out from the others. One of the few gripes I have with it is the performance, but hopefully they improve this over time. I highly recommend it if you haven't played it already.
