Atlas is turning out to be a playbook of current events: a battle between East and West
Players of the highly-popular pirate MMO are supposed to plant crops and discover ancient ruins but their objectives seemed to have shifted, PC Gamer reported.
Western gamers are pointing an accusing finger at their Eastern counterparts who are on Atlas North American and European PvP servers.
In fact, the hostility between both camps continues to grow and has become a source of rising tension within the gaming community.
Gamers are known to be competitive but the Eastern players of Atlas have taken this aggressiveness into a higher level and unfortunately, has evolved into racism and xenophobia.
MisterWoodhouse, a moderator on the Atlas sub-reddit, observed that the tension between the two camps has existed since the release of “Ark: Survival Evolved.”
He said this animosity grew when Atlas was released, pinning the blame on the game’s large-scale MMO-style.
MisterWoodhouse explained the two games have a lot of similarities, particularly on how they are played.
In Ark, the players are separated by discrete servers and as a result, only interact with those who are playing on the same server.
Atlas players, on the other hand, are stitched together via dozens of servers and are integrated into one world map where around 40,000 gamers can play at any given time.
The game is similar to Eve Online wherein everyone co-inhabits one world although there are more people who can one area at a time.
Located in America and Europe, the two PvP servers of Atlas are primarily intended to fuel war among companies which are player-led guilds.
And due to the game’s design, a player’s character can be killed anytime by an opponent.
However, many observed that after Atlas’ release Chinese players started an aggressive, well-orchestrated attack against their foreign counterparts.
According to redditor ‘manicscanic,’ almost all players were being pummeled by the Chinese gamers who seemed bent on obliterating everything in their path.
In fact, Manicsanic’s company was at the receiving end of the Chinese’ wrath wherein their ship was destroyed and all of them were killed.
This was also the same experience shared by other gamers on reddit, making the Chinese players one of the biggest and most influential group on Atlas’ servers.
But what is becoming more worrisome for gamers is the Chinese players’ propensity to use hacks and exploits in their attacks, which has given them a major edge over their competitors.
In turn, these overly aggressive attacks are creating a culture of racism within Atlas’ and encouraging toxic behavior, which is further fueling the “East versus West” divide among players.
