Hello and welcome! I'm MoonwalkingZear, that salty furry who's a sucker for salty food. Today we will be talking about the dino game on Steam that isn't ARK and is a rather cheap alternative to ARK now that the latter's price has skyrocketed. That's right we will be talking about The Isle today.
And before you ask, yes I'm well aware of the drama regarding the developers and Dondi and their alleged hostile behavior towards their consumers, but please be constructive in this thread and give the game, the developers, and this thread a chance. There's no need for hostility between FeralHeart and The Isle.
For those who don't know The Isle is a Early Access game on Steam that's a dinosaur simulator. It plans to have humans in it but for now it's basically dinos and all. The most major complaint is the kill on the sight or KOS but I will have to disagree with that because you need to know that this game is a bare bones survival game, yes even the mighty Tyrannosaurus can break a leg from a four foot fall. In The Isle it's kill or be killed.
Personally speaking I have never spoke with the developers of The Isle, not even Dondi. I first heard of this game back when it was verrrry early in development like before it was on Steam and was disappointed when it ran on Unreal and well my old computer couldn't handle it. Now with a Windows 10 and a mature mind I have bought the game and my thoughts on this game? It's impressive and my worries regarding the developers were washed away. There are community servers with varying rules, yes even rules on KOS. There are also Realistic servers that require you to join a Steam/Discord group to join, but explaining on how to get in one is a rather long story so we'll leave them out for now.
The main gimmick about the Survival gamemode is that you need progression points to become a larger dinosaur. You start off as a Psittacosaurus or a Orodromeus as a herbivore or just a Velociraptor as a carnivore. As you progress and survive you can change or evolve into a different dinosaur if you have the sufficient points. Progressing into a very large dinosaur such as a Shantungosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus however takes a while and a lot of time, points, food, and water. Also I don't recommend alt-tabbing while in this game, who knows if you get killed while you're busy watching a YouTube video. I recommend logging out of a server if you have to go, this is called safe-logging. If you don't like having to progress from a tiny Velociraptor to a Tyrannosaurus then there is the Sandbox gamemode where you can choose any dinosaur currently in game. Personally speaking I enjoy playing Survival.
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Below is the following list of dinosaur species currently in game, alongside their nicknames by the community,
HERBIVORE
-Psittacosaurus(Psittaco, Taco)
-Orodromeus(Oro)
-Dryosaurus(Dryo)
-Avaceratops(Ava)
-Gallimimus(Galli)
-Maiasaura(Maia)
-Diabloceratops(Diablo)
-Pachycephalosaurus(Pachy)
-Stegosaurus(Stego)
-Ankylosaurus(Anky)
-Therizinosaurus(Theriz, Theri)
-Triceratops(Trike)
-Shantungosaurus(Shant)
-Camarasaurus(Camara, Camera)
-Puertasaurus(Puerta, Pue)
CARNIVORES
-Velociraptor(Veloci, Velo)
-Herrerasaurus(Herrera, Herra)
-Austroraptor(Austro)
-Utahraptor(Utah)
-Allosaurus(Allo)
-Albertosaurus(Alberto)
-Barynonyx(Bary)
-Carnotaurus(Carno)
-Suchomimus(Sucho)
-Acrocanthosaurus(Acro)
-Giganotosaurus(Giga)
-Spinosaurus(Spino)
-Tyrannosaurus(Tyranno, Rex)
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PROS
-Beautiful graphics
-Realistic dinosaurs
-Nesting(It takes a while and some food for the eggs to appear however)
-Friendly community
-Active(Around 725-1000 players online when it's daytime in the US)
-Anti-cheat software(VAC and BattlEye)
-Somewhat cheap alternative to similar games such as ARK
-Rather frequent updates
-Two gamemodes(Survival and Sandbox)
CONS
-Work in progress(hence Early Access)
-Buy to play($20.00 US)
-Not recommended for older computers
-Can be difficult
-Long progression, sometimes up to 12 hours
-No tutorials
-Developers really don't like it when you ask for ETAs(Estimated Time of Arrival. Threads asking for ETAs will get locked on the Steam discussion page for the game)
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The game may have some flaws right now, mainly the alleged hostility between the developers and the community and those who don't know what they're getting besides a dino game, but still, it's one of my most played games on my Steam library along side Team Fortress 2 and so on. The thing is that you really shouldn't try pressing the developer's buttons for now, Dondi's buttons especially should not be touched. Regardless of what you might say about this game, I enjoy it over similar games like Primal Carnage: Extinction or ARK. And so I give this game a 8/10, or as YouTuber Caddicarus puts it, the game gets salvaged.
PS: I'm aware of the game Saurian but since it's a work in progress I will only make a thread about it as soon it is released in either Steam Early Access or full.
