Post by wraith on May 4, 2016 16:08:17 GMT -5
No one has done anything wrong! XD I love this community and all you guys. However, I made a recent decision to leave not just the server, but ARK as a whole.
My grandmother passed away last week, and as a result I wasn't gaming much. Spent a good 3 days with my family. That's the main reason for much of my absence lately in case anyone noted it.
That's not what really prompted this decision, though. Rather, it was having a chance to be away from the game compounded with some overall, erm, stress I've been feeling. I don't think ARK is a particularly healthy game for me, for a few reasons.
1) The game became work. There was always something to do, always some chore I had to complete. Get more metal. Get more wood. Collect food for the dozens of dinos we owned. Work on upgrading the base. Long travel time. And if there's one thing I've always hated it's work in video games. Back in my MMO days I always fell into the same pattern; get bored playing by myself, join a guild, be happy for a few weeks having people to play with, get annoyed with the guild requirements to log on every X days or join an event every X weeks, leave the guild and stop playing the game. Once I have to play "or else" I'm not longer having fun, and ARK turned into that for me.
2) Without trying to get too personal, I'm at a point in my life where I'm struggling to find some purpose. Mostly unhappy with my job and looking for something better, but this ultimately translates into me being very bored and just sorta floating along most days. I thought initially ARK would be good for this, as it would give me something to do and focus on (see Point 1). That backfired though, both because of Point 1 and because I never felt liek I accomplished anything. Even taming a high-level dino, or finding a really good item; the game just be didn't feel good anymore. Most days I would log off later in the night than I should and feel like I wasted my time, no matter what I had done. Games like The Witcher, or Dark Souls 3; they actually lend to a feeling of accomplishment. Of progression. At least for me, of course. I can clear an area of defeat a boss and feel like I did something. Nothing like that feeling in ARK, I'm sorry to say.
3) I got bored. Bored playing alone. You guys are all great, but once my two tribe mates left to do other things the game got stagnant for me. Suddenly I was suffering through the chores of base upkeep on my own, and I had no one to really share in the game with the way I would have liked.
4) It became all I thought about. I'd spend my free time pouring over the subreddit and thinking about the game, only to finally get to play it and, as I established in Point 2, ultimately feel like I didn't do anything. And there really isn't even that much info to go over when you really think about it. And going along with this, I feel like my relationships were suffering because of ARK; both with my girlfriend and my friends. And this is largely because of Point 1. I didn't feel like I could put the game down for very long or I'd do harm. I'd lose.... something. I need to get more meat, more metal, more stone. Gotta tame a higher-level rex. Gotta breed a better ptera. And so, I'm ashamed to say, I'd spend hours playing the game instead of doing anything else. It wasn't so bad that I'd never go out with friends or anything, but I started realizing that my gf was going to bed and waiting hours for me to go to bed myself. I'd go make dinner but leave the game running and rush back as soon as I was done. And our relationship was suffering because of this sort of thing. "Just gotta get that drop over there. Just gotta transfer all my stuff to my boxes. Just gotta finish this tame." But it never ended. This is particularly bad because I don't have a particularly addictive personality, but somehow this game got to me. I want to focus more on my relationships. Games like DaS3; I can put that down without having an itch to run back to it. I can stop and know that the game isn't going anywhere while I'm gone. I think, honestly, that ARK hit me because it continues in the background, and unlike an MMO (which also continues in the background) stuff can happen that negatively hurts me when I'm not logged on.
So, that's my super long-winded explanation. tl;dr I'm leaving ARK because I don't think it's healthy for me. I'm going to be uninstalling the game, and have already unsubscribed from the subreddit.
And I'm giving a gift to everyone interested. As of RIGHT NOW, everything in the Wild Hunt base is unlocked and unclaimed. Every dino and box. Please, feel free to head over to 67/47 and take whatever you like. We have a few decent high-level dinos (off the top of my head; a few rexes, a higher-level spino or two, a high-lvl rhino, a quetz, a few breed pteras (one almost pure black and one almost pure white), one of Fris's beavers with 1300 weight, and a giga) among others. For resources we aren't rolling in supplies, but you can take whatever you like, and use the structures in the base for crafting until they eventually decompose. Everything is in color-coded and named boxes for easy identification, though somewhere in the base is a chest holding some of my own personally acquired goodies. There is also a plesiosaur (with platform saddle), dunkle, and pretty decent shark sitting in the bay/strait right by Enron's base at around 77/39. All unclaimed.
Hope you guys get some use out of them, and sorry this is happening. I think it's the best thing for me. Good luck, all!
My grandmother passed away last week, and as a result I wasn't gaming much. Spent a good 3 days with my family. That's the main reason for much of my absence lately in case anyone noted it.
That's not what really prompted this decision, though. Rather, it was having a chance to be away from the game compounded with some overall, erm, stress I've been feeling. I don't think ARK is a particularly healthy game for me, for a few reasons.
1) The game became work. There was always something to do, always some chore I had to complete. Get more metal. Get more wood. Collect food for the dozens of dinos we owned. Work on upgrading the base. Long travel time. And if there's one thing I've always hated it's work in video games. Back in my MMO days I always fell into the same pattern; get bored playing by myself, join a guild, be happy for a few weeks having people to play with, get annoyed with the guild requirements to log on every X days or join an event every X weeks, leave the guild and stop playing the game. Once I have to play "or else" I'm not longer having fun, and ARK turned into that for me.
2) Without trying to get too personal, I'm at a point in my life where I'm struggling to find some purpose. Mostly unhappy with my job and looking for something better, but this ultimately translates into me being very bored and just sorta floating along most days. I thought initially ARK would be good for this, as it would give me something to do and focus on (see Point 1). That backfired though, both because of Point 1 and because I never felt liek I accomplished anything. Even taming a high-level dino, or finding a really good item; the game just be didn't feel good anymore. Most days I would log off later in the night than I should and feel like I wasted my time, no matter what I had done. Games like The Witcher, or Dark Souls 3; they actually lend to a feeling of accomplishment. Of progression. At least for me, of course. I can clear an area of defeat a boss and feel like I did something. Nothing like that feeling in ARK, I'm sorry to say.
3) I got bored. Bored playing alone. You guys are all great, but once my two tribe mates left to do other things the game got stagnant for me. Suddenly I was suffering through the chores of base upkeep on my own, and I had no one to really share in the game with the way I would have liked.
4) It became all I thought about. I'd spend my free time pouring over the subreddit and thinking about the game, only to finally get to play it and, as I established in Point 2, ultimately feel like I didn't do anything. And there really isn't even that much info to go over when you really think about it. And going along with this, I feel like my relationships were suffering because of ARK; both with my girlfriend and my friends. And this is largely because of Point 1. I didn't feel like I could put the game down for very long or I'd do harm. I'd lose.... something. I need to get more meat, more metal, more stone. Gotta tame a higher-level rex. Gotta breed a better ptera. And so, I'm ashamed to say, I'd spend hours playing the game instead of doing anything else. It wasn't so bad that I'd never go out with friends or anything, but I started realizing that my gf was going to bed and waiting hours for me to go to bed myself. I'd go make dinner but leave the game running and rush back as soon as I was done. And our relationship was suffering because of this sort of thing. "Just gotta get that drop over there. Just gotta transfer all my stuff to my boxes. Just gotta finish this tame." But it never ended. This is particularly bad because I don't have a particularly addictive personality, but somehow this game got to me. I want to focus more on my relationships. Games like DaS3; I can put that down without having an itch to run back to it. I can stop and know that the game isn't going anywhere while I'm gone. I think, honestly, that ARK hit me because it continues in the background, and unlike an MMO (which also continues in the background) stuff can happen that negatively hurts me when I'm not logged on.
So, that's my super long-winded explanation. tl;dr I'm leaving ARK because I don't think it's healthy for me. I'm going to be uninstalling the game, and have already unsubscribed from the subreddit.
And I'm giving a gift to everyone interested. As of RIGHT NOW, everything in the Wild Hunt base is unlocked and unclaimed. Every dino and box. Please, feel free to head over to 67/47 and take whatever you like. We have a few decent high-level dinos (off the top of my head; a few rexes, a higher-level spino or two, a high-lvl rhino, a quetz, a few breed pteras (one almost pure black and one almost pure white), one of Fris's beavers with 1300 weight, and a giga) among others. For resources we aren't rolling in supplies, but you can take whatever you like, and use the structures in the base for crafting until they eventually decompose. Everything is in color-coded and named boxes for easy identification, though somewhere in the base is a chest holding some of my own personally acquired goodies. There is also a plesiosaur (with platform saddle), dunkle, and pretty decent shark sitting in the bay/strait right by Enron's base at around 77/39. All unclaimed.
Hope you guys get some use out of them, and sorry this is happening. I think it's the best thing for me. Good luck, all!
I left my 80-something Survivor on Ragnarok, can we transfer our toons to AB or just start afresh? Very Happy to be Baaack!