Community Crunch 448: ARK The Animated Series Cosmetic Pack Coming Soon!

Have I missed a communication somewhere? Trying hard to defend and support the Wildcard team against the worst of the abuse on discord but where is the update or details around the recent issues? Is it all sorted now? Is everyone able to access their servers? What actually happened? Does it need to be a trade secret? Anyways… launching a paid skin dlc at this time of low feeling toward this game is not great timing… otherwise, thank you for six years of gaming… Ark is still the best of its genre out there, for now. 

Well what can I say... we've gone from the frying pan (megaraptor) into the fire (15$ skin)... but I say how can I defend a team of developers if they don't know how to prioritize things, sure maybe they're already taking care of it... but damn it at least make it clear that you're working on it, right? Now I hope that the people who propose to me to encourage other paid proposals know what happens when... it happens in fact, nothing good.

7 hours ago, ladyteruki said:

No, really ?

Another thing we used to get for free and that will now cost money. Add it to the pile.
You do realize that this stuff was supposed to be promotional material for your animated series, yes ? Do people usually ask to pay for being walking ads ? In a world where people can have access to any cosmetic they want on Curseforge, most of them for free, how well do you expect this to go ?

We're back to the gold times of Fortnite😰

7 hours ago, TyranntX said:

Excuse me, I think you mean STOLE the crown. As we all know that ballot was rigged.

You still can't accept it, right😂? Well it's a little difficult for everyone

5 hours ago, Sparky16 said:

The stuff in the fan art is just kickin'! Total fire, so much talent :3 The art doll and the tek gun make me want those so badly!!!!!!!!

Yes indeed they are very beautiful, think that once I tried to build a slightly more realistic version and... well I only say second degree burns

 

More money grabbing BS. 

 

Stop releasing new overpriced crap nobody wants or needs, that is broken the moment it’s released, and fix the stuff you’ve already got out so people don’t constantly worry about losing everything they’ve worked for over the instabilities. 

What is going on with the arkpocalypes mods they are not what was listed in the crunch.

$15 is to much. Many won't buy it, put the pricetag a $5 and you got a good marketing strategy for The Animated Series part 2.

Another pointless crunch just asking everyone for more money.

10 hours ago, ladyteruki said:

Do people usually ask to pay for being walking ads ?

I rise from my crypt once more to speak on this! As someone who worked for many big name brand retail stores, yes, yes they do. So much so that depending on where you live (read: the ghetto) they’ll literally break down doors and get into fist fights for the right to violently throw their money at terrified cashiers and slap on what amounts to ugly as sin clothing/shoes with a logo on it. Were I interested in working with the living rather than the recently deceased I’d be tempted to do a case study on it.

Selling cosmetic packs and p2w dinos is all this series is now. Sad.

How about some news on the UE5 upgrades ????

The CCs are largely just ads for mods and skins.

Smh x3 just for the weekend after so many people lost so many Dino’s they couldn’t get too because servers were down for several DAYS!!!! And the ultimate joke a lame skin pack for 15$ ?? This yet again a slap in the face to your player base. X3 would be a week long event minimum anything else is an insult 

"Soon, you’ll be able to bring stunning new animated looks to your ARK and create your own adventures—all for $14.99!"

 

bahahahahahahaha

10 hours ago, DoobE said:

I can t even use the skins I unlocked in Club ark, nor any or the previous animated ones that were free, are those paid dlc as well?

 

The dear jane ones for some reason don't seem like to work without the mod active, you could try adding it in and see if that helps.

Nobody cares about these dumb cosmetics at silly prices.. FIX THE GAME ALREADY! UE5.4 now rebranded as UE5.5 was promised last September/October.. then moved to January then moved to March.. it's March now. And as expected, dead silent about it once more. 

Back then (October or so..) WC said, oh we could get it done sooner but then we would have to move more people on it.. DO IT ALREADY! Take the people of these dumb DLCs and cosmetic skins and let them do something actually valuable to players so buyers of  your product actually play more and call their friends in to play and purchase copies.. instead of milking those few whales that still play the game in toxic servers and crashing all the time.. 

GIT GUT WC! Enough with the BS please! UE5.5, NV Framegen, bugfixes for engine crashes etc please. 

12 hours ago, Sparky16 said:

The stuff in the fan art is just kickin'! Total fire, so much talent :3 The art doll and the tek gun make me want those so badly!!!!!!!!

I always love to check out the fan art, too, especially the handmade/traditional stuff. I know the videos/screenshots take time and effort, too, but there's something special about picking up a medium outside the game itself. Sewing, painting, crochet, graphite sketches, even digital art. All these things that take inspiration from the game and go beyond its boundaries to make art from a new perspective. Also, seeing the creativity that folks put into their work is such a big inspiration all on its own, as well.

What about Unreal Engine 5.5

18 hours ago, TyranntX said:

We also wouldn't have gotten The Carbon Copy of the concavenator that is Fasolasuchus, and the obnoxious glider that is Yi... They are 100% rigged, you're not going to convince me otherwise until WC disqualifies the megaraptor and issues multiple public apologies.

Eh, pretty sure it was the people's choice, not WCs,  Megaraptor probably won because of the abilities it had.

Also, WC disqualifying the Megaraptor would be kind of disrespectful original submitter, so that's probably not going to happen.

Just saying even if I don't convince you.

I already have that Thylacoleo skin...Nevermind the Thylacoleo on my series x are just stuck in the super low res low poly format. 

Maybe going to cell shaded skins is their way of optimizing the game. Please fix the bugs and work on getting 5.5 out.

On 3/7/2025 at 7:43 PM, TheTwistedKeeper said:

Okay that's just annoying. 15 dollars for a map isn't bad, 15 dollars for a bunch of skins is just not worth it.

The Monster Hunter series would disagree with you. 😉

I, however, do agree with you. 👍

On 3/7/2025 at 7:45 PM, ladyteruki said:

Do people usually ask to pay for being walking ads ?........

................., how well do you expect this to go ?

They probably expect it to go very well. Considering that people have gladly paid to be beta-testers and guinea pigs for their games since the beginning of A.S.E.

People have happily paid to be perpetual beta-testers; have happily paid for over-priced mods and extra fantastic P2W dinos; have happily paid for continually broken servers; have happily paid for unfinished maps and other never to be finished or working properly content; have happily paid for a glorified graphics update and extra features originally promised to be added to the original game now held hostage for ransom; so why would people not happily pay to be walking advertisements? Snail might as well add a cosmetic skins package for $15 that lets you buy a set of clothing advertising Nike wear. 🙄

On 3/7/2025 at 8:24 PM, badjuejue said:

Hmm 3x is that for guilt? I was under the impression that the servers 💩 couldn't handle any more than 2x... or at least that's what we were told

They originally told us that their game couldn't handle a map any larger than The Island to. This statement as an excuse to why instead of adding the promised desert biome to The Island map that they had to make it an entirely separate map in their paid DLC Scorched Earth. Then not long after a modder gave us Ragnarok which is 4x the size of The Island. 

For that matter, they used to tell us that their game couldn't handle more than 2x rates. That was 2 or 3 2x permanent rate increases ago. Base rates is like 8x or more than original when A.S.E. first launched. 

21 hours ago, Rio4201 said:

Here's an idea, how bout you folks work on the maps we were promised and stop adding more and more dinos to a game riddled with them already?

And ruin the company routine that has worked so very very well for them and their pocketbooks since the beginning of A.S.E.? 🤔

20 hours ago, Entin said:

They're more of a novel advertisement of the animated series which you need a subscription to watch. 

You do not need a subscription to watch the animated series. Unless you mean a generic internet subscription. But even then, there are friends with internets or libraries or restaurants. 😉

19 hours ago, WesleySkillzs said:

If I were you I would just work on the basic game so that the game runs smoothly as you promised months ago, the game is full of errors and every time those fixes and the servers that crash automatically you get sick of it, now focus on the basics so that the game runs smoothly in every map and the old Ark lovers come back, 

Whenever I think about Ark or WildCard these days I always think about No Man's Sky. Now there's a game and a studio whose history has been as opposite to Ark as it can ever be! It's an amazing concept to think about! If only Snail would follow the same paths that they have then Ark would be so incredibly amazing I'd gladly pay $15 for a cosmetics skins pack! Snail would have absolutely no problems with money then!

My response to the cost at this point is just "Oh no! Anyways..." because I am used to it from games across the industry. I am hyped for the release of the next section of the Astraeos map and I am dying to know if those weird looking pigs will keep their look for taxidermy. I wish more things would keep their appearance for taxidermy, such as a glow for alphas, but they don't unfortunately, so I'm not confident those pigs will keep their looks.

13 hours ago, FlorianWind9 said:

The Monster Hunter series would disagree with you. 😉

I, however, do agree with you. 👍

To be fair, monster hunter will also go “lol, lmao” and make dlc thats literally a whole game in an of itself and chuck in TUs for free. That said, I still violently cry out into the void hoping they give me back gammoth.