Jump to content

  • Community Crunch 148: Extinction Chronicles IV Next Week, Dev Diary, & Upcoming Server Maintenance!

    Hey Survivors! Welcome to the latest edition of the Community Crunch! :Jerbhi:

    Extinction Chronicles IV Next Week!

    Ark_ExtinctionChronicles.png

    On September 18th Extinction Chronicles IV will be released on all platforms. As usual survivors can expect a new tek dino, new Explorer Notes, a new cosmetic, increased level cap, and special colored dinos on all ARKs!

    Developer Diaries!

    This weeks diary entry is brought to you by Lead Programmer, Chris Willoughby, as he talks about the process for designing gameplay mechanics for Extinction.

    Quote

    Hello Survivors! Today, I'd like to talk today about what goes into designing and building new gameplay mechanics. For brevity, I'll focus on the Scout, a creature that we've revealed as part of our upcoming Extinction expansion.

    scout.jpg

    Quote

    When we approach designing gameplay mechanics we start by brainstorming interesting ideas that would make a compelling addition to our sandbox. The Scout started as a desire for the ability to fly around the battlefield with a drone. We have several members of the team who enjoy flying drones, so collectively we fell in love with the idea of remote piloting early. We also had another gameplay mechanic that we were interested in that finds its origins in another franchise - the ability to tag enemies to reveal them to your allies. This idea was also high on our list, and through further brainstorming, we found it was a natural fit for the Scout, so they came together in the brainstorming phase.

    From there we seek to match those abilities up with concepts that fit well into the world we're building. This one was pretty easy. We knew that we were building a futuristic city for Extinction, and immediately we latched onto the idea of some kind of automated security force that patrols it. It took several more sessions to land on the idea of the interplay between Scouts and Enforcers, and the way that the Scout is deployed, but we're happy with where it landed.

    4.jpg

    Quote

    Next, we'll build the mechanic and iterate numerous times, using multiple weekly gameplay review sessions to nail the fine details. The Scout was deployable from a grenade and had remote viewing baked in pretty early on. Originally it's tagging mechanism was a projectile that it fired. This was very difficult to use, so we switched to more of a raygun. The tags originally lasted a very short time, so they weren't very useful. We've since upped the time that they last - making the Scout a key target for the other team to take out. In addition, we didn't originally allow the tagging of allies, but this slotted in naturally as a way to give a more complete view of the battlefield.

    Finally, we turn our experienced set of player testers loose to hammer on the mechanics until they fit well. This process is underway for the Scout and for Extinction as a whole as I write this. We've got nearly all of the mechanics playable and we're iterating on the roles that they play individually and collectively within Extinction and within the larger game. As such, the abilities described above represent a snapshot of where they are as I'm writing this. These can and likely will change before launch! This is part of the reason that often times when we talk about something early on it doesn't match up with what the final product becomes. However this iteration process is necessary to deliver the best playing experience that we can.

    Thanks for reading, survivors!

    Upcoming Server Maintenance!

    This Wednesday, September 12th at 12pm EST we will be merging the PC ARKpocalypse servers into one cluster. It is important for players on those servers to note that during this process any items or creatures uploaded into the Obelisk will be lost. Therefore it is strongly encouraged that you download anything in your cloud to ensure nothing is lost before Wednesday.

    You can follow us on Twitter to keep up-to-date with this server process.

    Mod Community Updates!

    The ARK Modding contest is now in full swing, and we've been getting some good entries, but I still want to encourage anyone that has ever considered making mods for ARK to dive in and participate. The submission period will be open until Saturday, October 6th so polish up those mods and let's have some fun. After that, we'll move into the voting phase where we'll post all the mods in the contest publicly and let everyone try them out and vote on their favorites.

    We've also received a couple tutorial bounty claims for chat commands and map optimizations and I have added a bunch of new bounties to the board ready to be claimed. You can find all of them here:

    We're going to need some new tutorial requests too, and please check the list in the form to see if the request already exists, as I choose new bounties based on demand which can only be counted if everyone submits the form using one of the items from the drop-down.

    Next week I'll have a new tutorial ready. I've been getting a ton of requests for a tutorial on version control, so I'm going to show everyone how to use Git with the devkit.

    Happy modding!

    The Great Migration #4: Inactive Legacy Server Removal

    large.594ef828430a1_F1r3fly-MigratingtoR

    Once again it is time to remove some of our lower population legacy ARK servers on Xbox and PS4 from our Official legacy network. Over time the ARK population has migrated from legacy to non-legacy and in its wake left many servers with low populations for 0-1 players in a significant amount of cases. 

    Here is a quick breakdown on how this process works:

    Taking Down Low Pop Servers
    With calculations based on sustained player-count as well as the popularity of game mode, we will be removing lower population legacy servers, most of which retain a 0-1 player concurrent population. These servers will be taken offline on September 24th. Any existing server that is not considered a low pop server and is not taken down at this time will still exist on the Legacy network.

    Legacy servers will continue to remain on a separate cluster from the new cluster, which means you will not be able to transfer anything between Legacy servers and the new servers.

    Servers Up for Deprecation
    Below is a complete list of the LEGACY servers that will be deprecated come September 24th. You have from now until then to move your belongings onto a server not present on this list. Please click one of the links below. They are separated by platform.

    How To Move Servers
    If you are unfamiliar with the process, you are able to upload your items, creatures, and player through the Obelisk terminal, supply drops, as well as the Tek Transmitter. Survivors are advised to use Cross-ARK immediately to relocate their belongings onto a server that is not included in our take-down list above.

    Server Saves of Deleted Servers
    We will make the save files available as soon as we can. We will host the PC files which anyone can download and then you are welcome to re-host the save file for your own use. We'll include a link to where you can download server saves in this post when they are available. Nitrado will also be able to provide the saves for use on Nitrado servers for console, as they have done in the past.

    You can see a list of our currently available depreciated official servers on this webpage: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/server-backups/

    Community Livestream #8 This Thursday!

    survivetheark-live-stream.jpg

    This Thursday September 13th the community team will be doing another biweekly livestream!

    During these livestreams Zen Rowe, Chris, and Jen bring you ARK news, celebrate modding, and the community as a whole every other week. We mix it up between playing ARK, showing off mods, and showing off your community creations for all to see. Survivors are invited to join us in the chat (and sometimes even in-game) to play and talk with the community team.

    1743917488_submit_fan_creation(1).jpg

    We are accepting any type of ARK related fanart to be featured in the Showcase section of the stream and entries are always open. This can be drawings, videos, builds, ANSEL screenshots, handmade crafts, anything ARK related!

    You can submit your ARKwork to our streaming email address: arkfans@studiowildcard.com

    Be sure to follow us on our Twitch page so you don't miss a stream! twitch.tv/survivetheark

    We'll be hosting our next Community Live Stream on Thursday, September the 13th at 1pm EST! We hope to see you there :)

    Fanart of the Week!

    33B6611F31A08B8EC82F70B3E741309C61FD5774

    8D115D33A8A36B78F26FED28491CC111E290E9DC

    D4F7591EF5EB2662FB8138640B9DA459B8D0A046

    8D9B23D3DE2F5AF4FDC44CDFFFBA7554B1F71E3E

    We would like to give a special shout out this week to creature paint artist Sharkcat for their Jurassic World raptor paints!

    ARK: Evolution Event!

    large.large.EvoEvent.png.eeb58694dd9d4cb

    Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 14th of September at 1 PM EST until Monday the 17th of September at 3 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

    2x Harvesting Rates
    2x Taming Rates
    2x EXP Rates

    That's it for this post guys! As always if you’ve got anything to share you can find us at:

    Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
    Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
    Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
    Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
    Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
    Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
    Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

    All the best,
    Studio Wildcard

     

    Edited by Jen


    • Like 2



    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    On 9/10/2018 at 11:57 PM, Ironpancakemoose said:

    They cant because legacy uses different hardware, however new servers should be added because its getting cluttered.

    Lol, really? Different hardware?

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    I love the scout! 

    And i want breeding event too, i hope this 18th september we can breed with x2.

     

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    The Nitrado "Import Official" function has a list that's a year old. 

    "This menu allows to import the official savegames to your own server. During the import, your current savegame will be deleted and replaced. The backups listed below are dated 24th August 2017."

    Not only that, the save for my server seems to have been corrupted, and put my server into a restart loop, or rather, would never restart.  Given that other Legacy servers have shut down since then, I simply don't believe the comment that this round will be available on Nitrado.

    • Sad 1

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Cool... can we get a working game now? Or do I still have to deal with these two year old game breaking bugs?

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Well, their commitment to weekly bug fix patches has lasted for 2-3 months at most. It's not likey they released patches every week during that time anyway. It doesn't say well about developers, who abandon their commitment without explaining why... Perhaps they don't care buntly. It must be fun to develop the game on broken core game code and see everything falls apart WC just finished. I wonder how much band aid fixes they have to implement to finish probably the last content update for ARK, Exctinction. 

    Edited by Lewiatan

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    16 minutes ago, Lewiatan said:

    Well, their commitment to weekly bug fix patches has lasted for 2-3 months at most. It's not likey they released patches every week during that time anyway. It doesn't say well about developers, who abandon their commitment without explaining why... Perhaps they don't care buntly. It must be fun to develop the game on broken core game code and see everything falls apart WC just finished. I wonder how much band aid fixes they have to implement to finish probably the last content update for ARK, Exctinction. 

    Maybe now is a good idea to get stocks and shares in the plaster and bandages industry :) Totally agree with you, it's like putting an extra floor onto a building with crappy foundations, gonna crumble :)

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    19 hours ago, Markdh31788 said:

    Lol if you do that for glowbugs I’ve got a tip for ya build a 2x2 bola the glowbug then Grapple it take it inside your building. Do it with enough of them and you can mass charge with no effort seein as they don’t despawn. You can build smaller but you’ll want to have an airlock (1x1 entry) to prevent them from getting out on accident 

    lmbo
    Sounds like a PvP tactic- and those tactics usually (or at all, honestly) do not work on PvE.
    PvE usually doesn't allow grappling/moving what is in a bola (sp?). :(
    Sounds like fun though. lol

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    1 hour ago, PreshusRoze said:

    lmbo
    Sounds like a PvP tactic- and those tactics usually (or at all, honestly) do not work on PvE.
    PvE usually doesn't allow grappling/moving what is in a bola (sp?). :(
    Sounds like fun though. lol

    Equus+Lasso would be another option though! 

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    I'm dying to play Ragnarok, but I can't beat Single player and I'm trying to do Admin commands to accend to unlock Ragnarok but it's not Working (Xbox User) and I also Checked the "Admin Log" Tab and it won't work. SOMEONE HELP PLZ

     

    Edited by Flare3260
    Misspelled

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Of course it will be TEK Achatina or Giant Bee, your personal tek bomb which produce paste or honey. :D

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    if you look closely you will see the wings are actually claws/arms. maybe you can equip those with tek rifles the way you equip a mantis with a sword

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    14 hours ago, Flare3260 said:

    I'm dying to play Ragnarok, but I can't beat Single player and I'm trying to do Admin commands to accend to unlock Ragnarok but it's not Working (Xbox User) and I also Checked the "Admin Log" Tab and it won't work. SOMEONE HELP PLZ

     

    use creative mode, i'm not an Xbox user, but if you use creative mode you can easily get all you need to summon and defeat the overseer

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    I hope the scout can be launched underwater, since it is tek it should be waterproof. scouting while still in your tek water base would be great. and it would just be cool to see a scout emerging from the water

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    On 9/11/2018 at 1:10 AM, DazzSHADOWS said:

    Guys can we please do something on PVE Aberration about people stealing batteries form the charge stations. We cant box them in and people keep taking batteries out so its a lose lose for those of us that try to do things as a server community to make quality of life easier.

    Perhaps alter the stations on PVE so that they are preloaded with non removable batteries for making element?

    I love ab its my favourite map and it really spoils it having to constantly replace the batteries.

    Pro Tip: Don't put batteries in 10 different nodes at once and the chances of them vanishing are slim. I worked out that if i drop batteries in 3-4 charge nodes, by the time i drop the last batch, the first set is charged and ready to make element. Once i make those, i move on to another group of nodes. If you pay attention to the layout, they tend to be clustered and close enough together where you'd hear an incoming drake that may be looking to steal your batteries.

     

    I've been been on Aberration since the end of the first week after its release and not once have my batteries been stolen. Those that have are players who use 5+ nodes simultaneously.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Thank you showing my fanart paints :Jerblove:

     

    Edited by Sharkcat
    typing error
    • Thanks 1

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    5 hours ago, AndrewLB said:

    Pro Tip: Don't put batteries in 10 different nodes at once and the chances of them vanishing are slim. I worked out that if i drop batteries in 3-4 charge nodes, by the time i drop the last batch, the first set is charged and ready to make element. Once i make those, i move on to another group of nodes. If you pay attention to the layout, they tend to be clustered and close enough together where you'd hear an incoming drake that may be looking to steal your batteries.

     

    I've been been on Aberration since the end of the first week after its release and not once have my batteries been stolen. Those that have are players who use 5+ nodes simultaneously.

    I get what your saying but my point is that PVE is supposed to be more community working together in my eyes and many share this same ideal so we all work together to try to improve quality of life for everyone on the servers we play. I have played ab since day 1 on 2 different servers and I can quite easily take batteries around with me etc etc , I left the first one due to loads [][][][] tribes purposely crashing server and causing extreme lag to the point where 90% of the time drakes would only belly flop and never glide. On both servers I have played the more friendly settled players including myself would go round to all the charge stations and place batteries in there so that whenever any of us went round doing our ele crafting we would just take the gems, ore and gas balls put it in click craft and only have to wait for the element to craft. The only issue with this is noobs taking them probably not even knowing what they do and people who are just pulling them with the intent to annoy others.

    My comment is just a suggestion to the Devs, I know they mentioned recently they were looking at ways to make Aberration QOL changes and removing the need for batteries or making 8 fixed batteries to craft element is a simple one that makes a big difference to everybody's game play because it would save a tonne of time and possibly help to encourage more people to play AB.
    It wasn't a complaint just a simple suggestion, I didnt intend to spark a debate nor be told to do it in ways I already know are possible. I'm pretty sure anybody that plays Ab a lot on PVE would agree its a good idea.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    On 9/12/2018 at 8:04 AM, Emgee77 said:

    Die Nitrado "Import Offizielle" Funktion hat eine Liste, die ein Jahr alt ist. 

    " Dieses Menü ermöglicht es, die offiziellen Spielstände auf Ihren eigenen Server zu importieren. Während des Imports wird Ihr aktueller Spielstand gelöscht und ersetzt. Die unten aufgeführten Backups sind vom 24. August 2017 datiert."

    Nicht nur das, der Speicher für meinen Server scheint beschädigt zu sein, und mein Server wurde in eine Neustart-Schleife versetzt, oder vielmehr, würde niemals neu starten. Angesichts der Tatsache, dass andere Legacy-Server seither abgeschaltet haben, glaube ich einfach nicht an den Kommentar, dass diese Runde auf Nitrado verfügbar sein wvW

    We have the same Problem with 

    xbox Legacy Island 165

    Edited by Austria
    Handy translate bu//****

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    On 9/11/2018 at 5:21 AM, Violet said:

    Glad there isn't. Servers are capped anyway, no need for more breeding poopstorm.

    Right and going out to tame another worthless Tek dino, a waste of exp weekend because of max level and lack of any inventory mechanic that allows for a quick transfer from two different inventories in less then ten seconds. What would be truly fun would to be playing on a game like ark that wasn't glitchy. 

     

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    1 hour ago, JuggaloCard said:

    Right and going out to tame another worthless Tek dino, a waste of exp weekend because of max level and lack of any inventory mechanic that allows for a quick transfer from two different inventories in less then ten seconds. What would be truly fun would to be playing on a game like ark that wasn't glitchy. 

     

    I never said I agree with that :)

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    55 minutes ago, Violet said:

    I never said I agree with that :)

    It would be nice just to have a baby event once a month. 

     

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Quote

    Friday the 14th of September at 1 PM EST until Monday the 17th of September at 3 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

    2x Harvesting Rates
    2x Taming Rates
    2x EXP Rates

    NOT active???

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    2 hours ago, Maniek said:

    NOT active???

    It is active. What server are you playing on?

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    7 hours ago, GP said:

    It is active. What server are you playing on?

    You responded to the questions about events, I like that, but many people including myself think you need to do something about the tame cap, which is already capped on 95% of the official servers, any news for console players? Console doesn’t get mods and you expect to say mods are the only thing you’ve done in 7 months, because if that is so you have done nothing for us, almost more than half of your community. How about bug fixes? Because ark has had some bugs for years now and haven’t been fixed, UNDERMESHING, make a death wall beneath the mesh, that’s all you have to do, make it close so you don’t have time to grapple, ez fix. If you guys fixed your crappy engine and base code you would be so much better off and you could get updates out 10x faster. What about this new game your working on, how about you explain to us what’s happening and we will be fine, but you post it on your YouTube and delete it, how about you tell us the truth, is that why extinction is taking so long? You are working on that new game instead of fixing your already massively popular one??

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites




    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...