Have you guys heard of this one yet? Atlas is essentially Ark: Survival Evolved redone as a pirate game MMO. I've been watching some streams of it the past few days. It had a horrible launch for early access right before Christmas, but they've fixed a lot of things and it looks a lot better now. Still in early access, so not finished yet.

You level up and learn various skills that help you craft and do things in game as you'd expect. The graphics are very good. Especially the water. There are some 'magic' things like dragons, yetis, and ghost ships, but haven't seen much of the first two yet. Lots of ghost ships in the seas, though. Looks very fun, but a game you'd want to play with in a group for sure.

The ships are awesome. Only six 'sizes' - a dingy (rowboat), raft, sloop, schooner, brig, and galleon. Hopefully they'll add more, but essentially you get the base hull and can design it from there. So most ships are very unique. To operate the larger ships (sloop on up) requires 3 and up people, and teamwork. You have a captain to steer the ship, men to man the sails, cannons, repairs, etc. Pretty much your typical combat with different cannon shot (round, bar, grape, etc.), and players can wear different armor and use various guns and swords/melee weapons.

I ended up winning a copy last night and am downloading it as I write this. Planning on trying it out this weekend as I can.

Can find more info at:
Game website
Game wiki
Steam page

Ugh... So sorry to hear that, bud. Know all too well about the pain and how it can affect you between my back problems and especially my parents'. Really screws up your sleep and just life in general!

If you can avoid surgery it's definitely best, but eventually you get to a point and then the surgery is a must. And it really does help. My mom had her hip replacement a couple of years ago and it really did help (if that's what you need make sure you get the newer surgery from the front done - anterior I think? - not the older from the side; it's a smaller incision and much faster recovery).

Don't think you've been missing much lately anyways. I still haven't logged in game yet (doh!). Guess maybe I should do that now. lol

Just take care of yourself and take it easy! 

Yeah, looks fun. In a mass chaos kind of way. lol! 

Hehe, probably because while we were all active I never went probably 2 days without logging in! 

Honestly, I probably won't be in game too much for awhile. My mom after tons of doctor appointments the past couple of years has finally been diagnosed with a herniated disc in her back and will be having an epidural injection tomorrow. So needless to say I'm pretty busy and probably will be for the foreseeable future.

Sadly things didn't last long for us last year when we were playing this. Tig and I grouped up a few times, but the others that were to play really didn't want to and so it fell apart. The only other one was in Europe and so played mostly different hours than us.

Wasn't horrible. Especially since I'm a huge LOTR fan, much like a Star Wars fan. But not the most fun to play solo, either. So when everyone else quit so did I again.

Think I heard something about the takeover, and others being somewhat negative about it. Be interested to hear your opinion on it if there are any changes.

haha!

Well, it's been a few things for me. Part dealing with some health issues with my mom and myself (my back acting up), and also I have to admit I recently found that our cable had some programming from premium channels like HBO on VOD that we don't normally have. So I binge watched Westworld and been catching up on a bunch of movies I haven't seen for free. Which is nice since I can rest my back and do that at the same time.

If I do get in game while you're on Corellia let me know, Scrog. The larger the group the better it is for Derkam with Squad Leader.

I've pulled down all my harvesters for now so I don't have to worry about logging in to check them currently. Was getting to be all I had time to do. Finally hit Master Artisan with Oapiso and even got Novice Armorsmith. So I should be able to make some cheap Mabari armor if you want some. Just let me know. Won't be great, but better than nothing. And easily replaced, while giving me some xp to make better stuff.

Yup.

Can't stand no skill gankers. Anyone worth their weight wants to fight someone who at least can fight back to provide a challenge. Usually the ones to use exploits, too. There's plenty of single player games you can go around killing easy targets if that's what you want. No need to ruin other people's days just because you don't have the ability to kill someone who can fight back.

Definitely agree. Up to now I really haven't been looking much at how good the resources are since I'm just trying to get something to grind with, but am starting to look at the actual qualities of what I harvest.

The other day I found a good local source for fiberplast that I sent a waypoint to Gre for. Will start to do the same as I find good metals or other materials I am harvesting, too. Will post here if I'm not sure if you need it, or just send the waypoint for something I know you need.