ARK vs Conan / Entertainment vs Engagement

As I mentioned in my last ramble I've been playing Conan Exiles lately and over the weekend I was looking at it trying to find why I seemed to be more captured by Conan than I had been by ARK. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing ARK, but there is something in Conan that I didn't have with ARK.

To be fair I must say that ARK is still in early access as well, and that I haven't played the game in the last several months so it is possible that changes have been made that I'm unaware of. 

Both games are sandbox survival games, which is to say most of what you get out of the game is dependent upon what you bring into it. So they don't have a story that you follow as you would with more traditional style games. ARK is rumored to be heading toward having an end goal that you are supposed to be working toward (building a ship and leaving the ARK in the case of ARK) while others of the genre are really about just living in the world. In either case, however, there is no definitive story.

Both games you create a character and are thrown into a hostile world naked and alone and you have to gather the resources that you need to survive. Both games use pretty similar mechanics for these systems (likely in part due to using the same engine and I'm sure that ARK influenced Conan's development significantly as well). Combat, building, and general survival concepts are all very similar between the two games. So why do I find Conan so much more interesting?

I suspect that there is several reasons behind it, but first and foremost it comes to engagement. I find myself more engaged with Conan than I really did with ARK. Why? Background. Conan has it, ARK doesn't. In both games you customize the appearance of your character in the game and name them. In Conan, however, you make a few additional choices - mainly Race and Religion. Race (or Culture really) is a purely superficial choice it has no bearing in the game beyond perhaps limiting certain cosmetic features during character creation. What it does add to the game, however, is background. It gives you a culture that your character came from. Religion, does have a little more impact in the game, namely how you interact with the religion system in game. Again, however, it allows you to get some background information as it would apply to the world and your character's place in it.

Finally, when you name your character in Conan you are also presented with a list of 'crimes' that you have been exiled for. There are other indications that point to the fact that these crimes may or may not have been real, but you have a reason for being in the wilderness where you start. ARK has nothing of this. You make and name your character and you appear in a world that you know nothing about, no idea how or why you're there .... just that you are.

Now in ARK you CAN create a full story around yourself and the reason for the situation that you are in, but generally when people are playing a game they are looking to relax, mentally creating something like that from scratch is not the type of thing that they are looking for. The world of ARK exists, but it is a completely blank slate there is no history, no character background, there really isn't anything to tell you that there could potentially be an end game.

I enjoy ARK, it does have an appeal to it. Taming Pseudo Dinos to help you work and protect you as you journey through the ARK looking for resources. Conan doesn't really have anything like that at the moment, but the world and lore that exists in the game provides a framework to help the player engage that ARK is lacking.

The Dinos of ARK, however, do present another issue. No it's not that I can't immerse myself because there's Dinos around ... I enjoy that aspect. However, once you reach the point that you have Dino mounts, and particularly flying mounts, the world shrinks significantly. I don't know how the map between Conan and ARK actually compares size wise, but Conan's world feels bigger, for the most part because you're traveling on foot. You can't fly up to the top of that cliff to see what's up there .... you have to explore and find the path up, and deal with any dangers on the way. Yes, in ARK you can forgo the Dino mounts and make yourself travel on foot, even not bring Dino escorts to help protect you and deal with issues, but that is basically forgoing a major feature of the game just to make the world feel bigger.

The world of Conan also feels a bit more alive and real with camps of tribes and other people around. In ARK only other players fill this role, if you're playing single player you are the lone human in the ARK (which really doesn't make a lot of sense even within what little framework they have for the game). Where as in Conan while you may be the only player, there actually are other people scattered around (though admittedly most will be trying to kill you if they see you, but there are some lore NPCs in the game).

You can say that the point of ARK is multi-player and I'll agree with that to a large degree, but the same IS true of Conan too. The truth is that either - you are playing on a PvP server (most of which are little more than deathmatch arenas with no hope of story or any real engagement) or you're on a PvE server that basically boils down to you and your friends are the only humans on the ARK (at least this is a little more believable). [Note - I'm not saying that everyone on a PvE server are your friends or are even in the same tribe as you, but since there are no humans on the ARK that are ever a threat to you, you may as well be.]

In short, what it really boils down to is ... Conan is more like a world while ARK is more like a game. ARK (again when last I played it) is entertaining and fun, it is challenging, and rewarding when you tame a new Dino or finish building a new base, but it isn't engaging, it never really feels like a world. Lore and backstory can be added, and I hope that the devs and mod community will create lore and backstory for the characters and worlds and make the game more engaging, but in my experience that aspect is what is currently pushing Conan Exiles ahead, at least for me.