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  • 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!

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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

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    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!

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    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.

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    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!

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    8D115D33A8A36B78F26FED28491CC111E290E9DC

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    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!

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    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


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    1 hour ago, Tommallama said:

    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??

    I'm just a simple volunteer moderator on the forum as per the title under my name.

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    3 hours ago, Dinomatic said:

    I feel the need for a tek flyer, an illuminated Quetzal would be cool...

    a quetz would not work because they are rare and tek versions only have a 5% chance of spawning. no quetz, no giga, no titano, no nothing that is rare

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    3 hours ago, GP said:

    I'm just a simple volunteer moderator on the forum as per the title under my name.

    Sorry about that, lol, you have just been answering questions and stuff so I kinda assumed, I don’t see the title though, must be a mobile thing, I’m just very passionate about the devs being particularly dumb sometimes because they wiped us because we raided someone and they said their base was impossible and told the devs, even though I streamed it and my friend uploaded the 3 hour video of us soaking and blowing stuff up on his YouTube 

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    2 hours ago, destructicon54 said:

    a quetz would not work because they are rare and tek versions only have a 5% chance of spawning. no quetz, no giga, no titano, no nothing that is rare

    Tek quetz is very likely, even if it's going to be hard to find. It already exist on consoles as a skin, just like all the tek dinos that have been released so far.

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    20 hours ago, Weiss said:

    Tek quetz is very likely, even if it's going to be hard to find. It already exist on consoles as a skin, just like all the tek dinos that have been released so far.

    It would be almost-existent, it would be like the unicorn, except it doesn't spawn at all 

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    A tek quetz or giga would just anger the population because they look forward to a dino that isn't rare and isn't an end game tame.

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    Can't wait for new colors, the latest ones have been so pretty. Hopefully the new tek dino will be something we ride or use regularly, tek anky maybe ? i can already imagine tek spikes.

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    I really want to read those new notes. a tek anky would be nice. i don't care what creature the tek thing will be as long as it is NOT rare and NOT an end game tame

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    21 minutes ago, destructicon54 said:

    I really want to read those new notes. a tek anky would be nice. i don't care what creature the tek thing will be as long as it is NOT rare and NOT an end game tame

    Why?
    We already have the raptor and stego as tek, neither of which are rare or endgame.
    The rex is kinda rare and is endgame.
    Nothing wrong with getting a rare endgame tek dino.

    Made a mess up there and posted twice, couldn't find an option to delete the first post, sorry.

    Edited by TinyHippo

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    53 minutes ago, TinyHippo said:

    Why?
    We already have the raptor and stego as tek, neither of which are rare or endgame.
    The rex is kinda rare and is endgame.
    Nothing wrong with getting a rare endgame tek dino.

    Made a mess up there and posted twice, couldn't find an option to delete the first post, sorry.

    its a problem because if its a rare dino, the tek version will almost never spawn. when i say endgame and rare i mean like a giga or a quetz that only has a few on the map at a time

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    1 hour ago, destructicon54 said:

    its a problem because if its a rare dino, the tek version will almost never spawn. when i say endgame and rare i mean like a giga or a quetz that only has a few on the map at a time

    I personally don't see anything wrong with it.
    Nothing wrong with having rare spawns in my opinion.
    It'll just mean that they're harder and will require a lot more work to find.

    We'll see what it is soon though.

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    28 minutes ago, BruthaJamez said:

    Can't wait to see tomorrow's new Tek dino and color! Hoping for green!

    There's a good chance it might be green. This is what we've had so far:

    I - White, Yellow, Grey, and Black
    II - Purple, Blue, Black, and Grey
    III - Red, Black, White, Grey

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    35 minutes ago, BruthaJamez said:

    Can't wait to see tomorrow's new Tek dino and color! Hoping for green!

     

    4 minutes ago, GP said:

    There's a good chance it might be green. This is what we've had so far:

    I - White, Yellow, Grey, and Black
    II - Purple, Blue, Black, and Grey
    III - Red, Black, White, Grey

    Also, there are 4 tek colors, blue (default), green (gamma), yellow (beta), and red (alpha).
    Considering we've had the other 3, I'd guess we'll get the last one this time.
    The next set of colors will probably include orange and black because Halloween.

    And thank you for deleting my borked post up there super secret mod.

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    Just now, TinyHippo said:

     

    Also, there are 4 tek colors, blue (default), green (gamma), yellow (beta), and red (alpha).
    Considering we've had the other 3, I'd guess we'll get the last one this time.
    The next set of colors will probably include orange and black because Halloween.

    And thank you for deleting my borked post up there super secret mod.

    Orange and Black for halloween would be great. They should do Orange / Black / Purple colours.

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    51 minutes ago, MA006 said:

    Extinction chronicles across all platforms, including mobile!?

    No, Mobile ARK is a complete separate game from the other platforms.

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