izigame.me

I have been a faithful player of Ark (Evolved and now Ascended). I’ve logged over 18k hours on Evolved alone. I’ve always loved the concept of the game and it’s always kept me coming back for more. However, I just can’t recommend this game to anyone because of the developer team at WildCard Studios. I’ve never seen a studio so out of touch with their player base and just so blatantly disorganized and have absolutely no foresight at all. It has just become to frustrating that my tribe and I have finally given up.
We’ve sat through hundreds of bugs, delays, unplayable servers, but after this launch it’s just been too much. We were ready day 1, and waited around all day refreshing on PC to be one of the “first” in and try to get a good location. We were lucky enough to get one of the best spots (herb island) on a official server (PVE). Wouldn’t you know it, some how the dev team enabled GOD MODE so anyone could spawn whatever they wanted in. After about 2 hours after launch, they did a complete rollback to day 0 and all was lost for us. By the time servers were back online, we had to log off and never had a chance at getting the island again. Immediately, all of the servers were capped (70/70). They didn’t make NEARLY enough servers for the amount of users attempting to play. It was an insane lack of planning that really makes you wonder how a decision like that could possibly be made. Almost immediately, the servers began crashing hourly. Generally speaking, the first few weeks of any map launch had smooth running servers. It was only after people were established and tribes built mega bases did server performance start to suffer. That wasn’t the case here, as the servers began crashing hourly with a 15 minute roll back over and over daily. Still, we suffered through it. Playing the game 30-40 minutes at a time and tried our best to plan around the inevitable crash and roll back just hoping eventually wildcard would find a solution. This went on for WEEKS with no real resolution.
They then made matters even worse when they decided to implement a “join server queue system” that wasn’t really a server queue system but simply an auto clicker that was much slower than any actual auto clicker. This made all of their capped servers (which they all were) way harder to get into. Their logic was laughable, they wanted to save us on “clicks”. All they did was make us have to click more to get around a prompt that made the game even harder to access. The discord was flooded with users pleading to have it removed and of course nothing was done about it. It seems eventually the system works better than previously, although I’m not sure if that’s a case of less players actually trying to get into the servers.
The next huge error (IMO) was when Xbox and PS5 launched weeks after release. Our server (Steam) was advancing well. There were hardly any places to build (This is official PVE pillar hell, mind you). We were constantly at server population cap. When Xbox released (and PS5 shortly after) our old server was FLOODED with these players looking to start fresh on a already overbuilt map with players at a much different stage of progression. Overnight, our capped server just become completely unplayable. The console players just kept joining, even though there were boosted “new” servers for them to play on. They kept saying that these servers were impossible to get into so they had to come to the older servers just to get started. It created a HUGE mess. All of the older servers were overrun in days and we all hit SERVER tame cap. We couldn’t do anything during the much anticipated Afterlife event. Turkey trails has now started and we can’t tame, breed, or do anything of worthy progression in the game other than farm materials.
The game, now in it’s current form, is completely useless. We should talk about WHY wildcard would launch a game like this. How ANYONE there that it would be a good idea to not include CRYOPODS that help so much with server stability. Now, all of us who were “first in” are paying the price of these laughable decisions.
I’ve been playing since release back in 2015. But, I am done at this point.
We can talk about the issues above and sure that played a big role in my decision (and my tribemates and tons of other former players I’ve talked to). However, the BIGGEST reason I’m calling it quits is because of the DEV team. Specifically Dollie and Cedric. Cedric is suppose to be the “community manager” and it’s just an absolute joke. He’s rarely active on social media or the discord. Never getting ahead of any issue. Never advocating for the community or keeping us up to date. Go check his X right now and see the laughable amount of information he puts out. This game is an abject failure as a community manager and the fact that he can operate in his role without actually doing his job tells you all you need to know about the managing team behind him.
That brings me to Dollie, who loves to masquerade as a community manager when it’s convenient for her. The lack of communication from Cedric pushes Dollie to the front of the “Communication” line (mainly on discord) where she is generally the one answering questions. The issue? She uses it as her personal venting platform where she cares more about her witty 1 liners and shaming the few trolls who say inappropriate comments. She scrolls by hundreds of legitimate issues, recommendations, and even messages of support and targets in on the few 12 year old trolls who are making inappropriate comments. It’s so disingenuous that she does this so she is constantly viewed as the victim, not the thousands of paying customers who are BEGGING to be heard by ANYONE at the company about all of their valid complaints. This is a view shared by EVERY SINGLE player I’ve spoken to about it in game.
Don’t be like me. Don’t invent your time and energy into this game. The dev team does not care about you and have no foresight at all. This game will pull you in and then frustrate you to all hell. Take my advice and avoid it.