How was your very first few days on ark when you got it

[Danielnz00]

Remembering my first few days on ark the day it launched, me and my buddy, after managing to avoid most dangers and finally find each other , night time had arrived, we settled down next to a river, got the camp fire set up and started the wait for morning, when out of the darkness a sarco ambushed us in our peaceful camp, destroying our campfire and leaving us running for our lives in the pitch black to where we both got lost and eaten....

[PuffyPony]

I don't think my behind was unclenched until at least the fifth or sixth day of playing the game. It felt pretty intense, sitting naked in the darkness with little more than a fire pit and flimsy walls for protection.

[LadyCrescent]

Confusing, directionless and filled with death, lol. I joined two of my friends in one of their non-dedicated games to check it out and see if I’d enjoy it.

They already had a small base set up, so my time at camp was spent mostly fumbling controls, encumbering myself, periodically drowning myself or knocking myself out with narcoberries, or staring glassy-eyed at the swath of available engrams to ponder what I should have and why. Then at some point in the session the owner of the non-dedicated wanted to go adventuring...so the three of us would wander down the beach with no real plan, and get unceremoniously consumed by things we were in no way prepared to fight.

After about five days in her game, I had a handle on the controls, a grip on the basics and engrams, enough confidence and knowledge to avoid the stupidest of my many mistakes and a mission to own all the dimorphodons, so I moved to my own game... and took off on my journey.

From that time, when Ark launched on Xbox, I’ve played all the official maps, invested in a gaming PC with Ark and the workshop as my main motivator, and ended up buying it a third time when I got a PS4 because I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as too much Ark.

From a hapless idiot making every possible mistake in the book to a seasoned veteran of her favorite game of all time, it’s been an incredible journey. ?

[Obbu]

The feeling of threat of the first few days is something that's sorely lacking from the later stages of the game.

You kind of feel like you 'win' the survival aspects of the game too early: and I think it's symptomatic of you being able to place bases everywhere, and dino's stop being able to affect them: I'd love for there to be areas designated as no-man's-land where no one can build: to incentivise transit, adventure and interaction with the environments.

I'd also love to see more of a base defense dynamic that was independent of PvP: i don't want my base getting flattened overnight by carnos, but an incentive to continue to upgrade your base to keep it from deteriorating would be a nice touch. I'm all for being able to escape losing everything over night: But completely eclipsing the mechanic after a few days/week feels a bit sterile.

I'd say the first few hours/days of the game are where the survival aspects of 'survival evolved' feel at their best.

[RoyHess666]

This was a long time ago, but the first timg I've probably done was looking at a raptor - it was a wild one.

So sexy and so deadly.

[MotherOfRaptors]

Oh, good old days. Me and my tribemate spawned on the south-east coast  of the Island. First few hours we were trying defend ourselves from dilos, that ruled this land and seemed for us to be the deadliest dinos of all time. Until we discovered raptores and therizinos also spawn nearby... After a few days we had a cute little wooden base, a few dodos, raptors and pteranodons. And I remember the day when we tamed our first carno - 120  (yes, I still remember) lvl brick-red carno. Oh, we used to ride around on it taking turnes, wrecking everything and scarying our new low-lvl neighbours, getting our dose of their admiration. That carno was a local star for a while. I so miss these days now, when we have all these high-end dinos and gear and not afraid of almost anything.

[yekrucifixion187]

My first few days were thrilling once I grew accustomed to the lag. i remember going into the woods to harvest wood at night when suddenly I get hit and died. No idea what it was. I fought raptors and trikes and stego's during the day and never got that same sound, same hit killing me. About a week later I get that same sound and same hit killing me. My true introduction to the Theri. 

I use to tame the stuff that would kill my current animals. lol. A revenge tame. Carno killed my Parasaurs, Stego's and Trikes. I got myself a new Carno, Theri killed my Parasaur's, Stego's, Carno's and Trikes. I got myself a new Theri (that first Theri never died until I killed it to lower tribe tame). 

You can never get that first initial feeling though. Even restarting on the new server's there was too much knowledge from your first run around. Our first day we tamed our Parasaur's, dodo's, low level ptera's, grabbed a 170 fire egg, tamed our dilo's, tamed a low level rex, tamed a low level doedic, built an initial stone base, a raft, tamed a shark, tamed a bunch of Scorpions, tamed quite a bit more. Like it was nothing. By day 3 when we had the stuff for kibble we tamed the high level Ptera mating pair, tamed a Sabertooth, high level Wolf mating pair, Bee hives, so on and so forth. We may not have the stats we did on legacy yet (actually better in some breeding lines like our Anky's) but we are back up to not fearing too much. We kite Wyvern's to our Rex's for prime meat. Good but not great Rex's. 16k hp, standard saddle, 600 melee on most of them. I think we had 3 Rex's die to a group of three Wyvern's early on. They were all 12k, 500 melee Rex's and we encumbered them with stone creating kind of a death trap alley for Wyvern's and other animals that attacked. Normally that was good enough but the Wyvern's were attacking outside their AOE and behind so they were able to kill two of the Wyv's but not the third. 

I like doing well but I do agree that the only thing I fear now really is a glitch like a manta spawning into a secure water pen killing my 150 mutton tamed Basil or a DC while kiting a Wyvern for milk to our trap and my poor griffin just having to absorb some punishment until I can reconnect and get back on him. I do miss that initial thrill and intrigue but I just turned my focus from surviving to thriving. Building the best statted dino's i can. I want to be the first on my server to hatch something at level 300. My Argy and Anky line has the most promise there. 

[Shayne1973]

Downloaded it the first second it hit the Xbox after my son had shown me the trailer.

My first death cane seconds after I looked at the gem on my wrist ( raptor)

I must have died a couple dozen times that first day and though it was frustrating it was addicting.

The sense of wonder and excitement was uncontrollable. I had to see what was further up the river or I was curious to someday reach that volcano in the distance.

I still remember the first time I seen a rex and how my heart stopped when 2 of them came crashing out of the tree line and how relieved I was when they ignored me and headed toward a group of brontos.

In fact I miss being vulnerable and I would suggest new players enjoy those first days.

[Runia]

Frustrating, but ultimately a nice enough thrill. One of my first deaths was when I wandered into the redwood biome, got jumped by Thyla and fell in love with the murdercat. Now I'm a crazy cat lady ingame.

[DarkEliteH2]

I remember my first few days....aaaah how the alpha raptor scared me then.

We were in a thatch hut, and me and my bestie were cowering inside while one of our more masculine friends went to ward it off. Needless to say, he died, and we were left screaming inside til the lil bugger derendered

[rororoxor]

17 hours ago, Danielnz00 said:

 

Remembering my first few days on ark the day it launched, me and my buddy, after managing to avoid most dangers and finally find each other , night time had arrived, we settled down next to a river, got the camp fire set up and started the wait for morning, when out of the darkness a sarco ambushed us in our peaceful camp, destroying our campfire and leaving us running for our lives in the pitch black to where we both got lost and eaten....

 

When i first played, I didn't know what a hotbar was, so I would unequip items by dropping them and picking them back up.

Also the first time i ever spawned was inside someone's locked 3*3*3 house

[Gunzor]

We started in a group of 5 and a T-Rex  attacked our base day 1 while we only had bows. I had a vet teach as we went along so I'd hate to solo or single player knowing nothing at all.

I recorded this to my youtube, so  I can go back and laugh how noob we all were, good times A few thousand of hours later, spawning in a random zone nakid and seeing if you can survive until you make a outpost with a bed, is still is more fun than just flying your OP Wyvern around, trying to remember when you last died (that was not a glitch).

Spoiler

 

 

[HalfSlabBacon]

I died to a dilo.... Spawned back in, died to a raptor... Spawned back in, died to a... "Three Hours Later"

Finally much later that day, and a borderline rage quit, I got a bit of a thatch base set up and started making progress... Then I accidentally aggro'd a Carno... Goodbye thatch hut!

Why did I think hiding in there was a good idea?????????

Yup, full on addiction right from the start!

[AdligerAdler]

Spawned in south zone 2. Still live in south zone 2 after 10 months.

Built thatch hut by water and raptors kept harrassing me. Destroyed my thatch hut. Moved somewhere else. Build wood hut in the jungle. Found a better spot by water, and that's the place where I still live today. On legacy and on new server. It's at 84/61 on The Island. The little isle. Great place. Close to ocean, beavers, jungle, rock island, southern cave, some metal on small mountain.

Ah good days when there was no troodons, pegos, microraptors, cnidaria, eels, ichthyornis, and my biggest problem was dilos and raptors.

[xerokishi]

spawed at the swamp. died about 20 times and ragequited then asked a friend for tips the next day

[Pic1]

Amazing. I spent the entire month of February learning the game in single player. Kinda felt like I was a noob back when I first got WoW all those years ago

[ChaotixChaotix87]

I spawned, couldn't get passed a rock on a cliff side, punched it and died

Safe to say I left it a week or so before coming back with friends, while they fussed over finding each other I made a hut and awaited their arrival, we then spent the entire day passing through the digestive system of several carnivores and one fish whilst trying to find our hut.

We found it. By accident. On the backs of wyverns.

We had a new base at this point....

[Guest DJRone89]

Me and my housemate were on The Island trying to find each other not realising the distance between the obelisks. I was near green ob and he was near the red ob, but in reality we were closer to each other and no where near either of the obelisks.

What I love about this game is that there are no quests, you just log in for the first time, naked and afraid.

I didn’t take us long to grasp what we were doing though and immediately set up our thatch hut deep in the jungle away from civilisation.

My first iconic moment was seeing a tamed Quetzal for the first time from a neighbouring tribe down a the river, north of the large stone rock formation to the south of the map. I had only seen a few wild Pteranodons, so to see someone take off on a Quetzal, stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t see another one until mid game, several weeks later.

The above was taken from my first time on official, on the initial release of the Xbox version to early access. A time where everything was new and exploring was a more enjoyable experience.

[Olivar]

My very first Ark day:

• Login
• See a dinosaur in the distance
• Get eaten
• Respawn
• Get Eaten by pack of raptors
• Respawn
• Get eaten by Rex
• Respawn, ooh on an island, swim to main island
• Get eaten by pirahna
• Log off
• Try again next day.

[Glerian]

Lol yeah I remember this pretty well, it was only a month ago for me! Spawning in on the beach with NO idea what the controls do or what awaited me. Punching trees, making stuff, I remember I used to get so upset when I lost my stone pick and cloth armor. It was very exciting, very frustrating. I would regularly meet other players on the beach who would promptly knock me unconscious and feed me narco berries, which I had no idea was possible.

Then I learned to avoid the noob beach, and found another. I did some exploring and built my first thatch hut on the beach... which was promptly raided. So I built ANOTHER thatch hut in the jungle close to the beach, which was raided. So I built a WOODEN house on the other side of the island near the beach, which was destroyed by an Alpha. Eventually I built a stone house on the southern islets near the metal mountain. It got raided too, but not before I tamed a Ptera and was able to make a small metal base far north. I had most of my stuff in the new base before the raiders came a calling.

Yeah, the first few days of ark were a blast!