Community Crunch 43!

[Jen]

Hello, Survivors! Welcome to the 43rd issue of the Community Crunch! My name is Jen, and I’ll be bringing you the Community Crunch this week.

To those unaware the Crunch is a weekly topic that consist of content to share, made by the community, for the community! As well as any little changes I want to make survivors aware about, which happen within our community.

Mod Contest

Earlier this year we were thrilled to announce the first challenge for modders with our very first ARK International Mod Contest! Putting content creators, new and old, to the test through making their own ARK Mod. 

I’d like to take this time to thank each and every person who submitted their mod for participating! We have over 100 entries, which is amazing. Studio Wildcard will be releasing the top candidates for public voting shortly.

Community voting on the mod contest entries will begin on April 11th, so stay tuned for that! The winners will be announced on May the 15th 2016, after finalist voting, spotlight and judging rounds.

‘Mysterious Mysteries’ Contest Winner

With everything that’s been going on recently, we mistakenly forgot to announce the winner of our Mysterious Mysterious contest that took place a few weeks ago. Much congratulations to Survivor William! We will be get in touch with you over email to sort out your prize.

For those that are curious, here were the four correct guesses (and one bonus guess we also accepted):

• Survivor League Logo
• The Obelisks in the old locations
• No Snow Biome
• 2 in the cloud
• Music ** BONUS **

Fan Feature

Northward by Freyaloi

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=656720497

Yer Bein Watched by Stanism

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=654455277

K4LLA's Art

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/gallery/album/600-k4llas-art/

Ark Survival Evolved "Happy Easterville" by hanseN Gaming

What it feels like to raid in Ark! by ThickFreedom

Rugops by milokamilo

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650899828

NEW on MNI mod by milokamilo

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=656625037

Caulkcephalus dossier by Davey Jones!!!

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=655573826

Rathian Dossier by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=654886205

Gastonia Dossier 'Tectis Arma-Murus' by Malkizid

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645399258

Archelon Dossier by AtlasBlu45

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/47178-ark-archelon/

Feliscatusaurs Dossier by TheCuriousDodo

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/gallery/image/4904-feliscatusaurs-dossier/

Ferrari Dolphino and Lamborghini Dolfino by Sharkcat

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=646949963
Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=652478022

Squire by Seraphine

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648073677

Argentavis by Rustey

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/45070-rustey-~-argentavis/

Tribe Flag by GamerPerfection

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/gallery/image/4720-tribe-flag/

Community Contests

ARKitect

This is an award given to Survivors to celebrate the amazing structures you build. These bases are judged based upon a number of different factors such as their creativity, uniqueness, how fun of a base it is, the difficulty of building it, the functionality it provides and much more!

The ARKitect for Community Crunch 43 is..

A tie between TimmyCarbine's Roman Styled Villa, and Welcome To Paradise's Underwater PVP Arena! 

ARKArt

This is an award given to survivors who have created beautiful work of art for that week! As always, the artwork is not being judged on the quality of the screenshot or the graphical settings used, but instead what you have managed to draw and produce in game.

The ARKArtist for Community Crunch 43 is…

A tie between Okim's charming canvas paintings, and Sentoki's adorable BunnyDodo Easter Egg!

Thank you for all the entries this week guys! Congratulations to all our winners and if you’d like to take a look at what all the survivors submitted, you can do so here:

Workshop Spotlight

This weeks Workshop Spotlight is brought to you by Cedric, our Mod Liason. Take it away, Ced! 

Workshopper: Swords
http://steamcommunity.com/id/weirdguythatsmiles/myworkshopfiles/

(Before we get started, we have a new Youtube channel called "ARK: Workshop". On this channel you can expect to see me embarrassing myself and covering some of the latest mods in the Ark Community. It's a channel dedicated to the modding community and will feature interviews, reviews, and events that are going on within the community So hit that subscribe button if that's something you're interested in seeing! )

Hey fellow survivors!  Cedric here with my first ever workshop spotlight and community member Samson F.  Hey Samson, It's been awhile since we heard from you.  Jat covered some of your work earlier on when the dev kit was still new but you've obviously had a lot more time and experience.  For anyone that doesn't know you, give yourself an introduction.  Don't be modest, I wouldn't!!

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Hello, everyone! My name is Samson, go by Swords online. I'm 26 and live in Seattle, best city ever. My hobbies are listening to chillstep and drinking lots  coffee. I’ve been playing Ark since it came out but I can honestly say my hours in the Dev kit have surpassed that by far.

Oh you're in Seattle!?! We'll have to grab coffee sometime!!  I'm actually glad it doesn't log hours "played" in the dev kit like the Steam version did.  So we at the office, had a blast playing with your NPC mod.  It seems like it has went through several iterations and changes since its first debut.  Tell us a little about what the mod is and you're inspiration for making it!

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I agree, Seattle has the best coffee in the nation!  My first proof of concept for NPC's was very basic, here's a video link to the video:

At the time of making this video I wanted to make a wild roaming human that was wearing a bush. Since then It has grown exponentially, my NPC mod is a collection of all the tutorials I’ve found online about the Unreal Engine. Starting from no experience my plan is to expand and learn more advanced techniques, I will be adding my knowledge into the mod as I go and adding my own tweaks to make it more fun. My end goal is to have the Ark multi-player experience offline.

It's interesting you say that because when I gave this a spin to test it out, I actually thought I logged into a server for a second.  There were chat bubble heads on the NPC's!!  It shows how much thought and work you put into this!  It's crazy you had no prior experience.  Explain what it's been like learning by trial and error.  Is it discouraging?

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Oh yes, but only at first. Once I got a hold of the basic understanding of why and how features were used I took off. I do lots of research online, mostly reading every support ticket I can find so I can hopefully remember solutions and how they would connect to me in the future.

That takes some dedication!  Well the hard work definitely shows.  As far as the mod goes, what are some of the future plans you have for it?? After playing it, I can see so many possibilities.  From people who just want to add some indigenous-like tribes that were native to the island, to people who want to wage all out NPC wars (like me!!!).  What are your short term and long term goals?

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Short term goal is to make the mod fully customizable for any play type. I recently branched off a primitive only version, but In my main mod, I added a wide range of INI settings to modify/enable/disable parts of the mod any way the user wants. I really want to get the NPC siege's just right, currently, they are very brutal and unforgiving when attacking player bases. Long term this mod needs a lot of polishing, I'm working with my subscribers to push out fixes and features as soon as they are posted, I'm currently going from crash avoidance to purposely crashing features to flush out the remaining ones hiding in the mod.

Not a bad idea!  Preparing for the worst case scenario so every scenario becomes the best scenario because you've handled all the "worst"?  Or something like that Well I must say the work you have done is very impressive.  I can't wait to see where this goes considering how much progress you've made already.  Are there any specific resources or guides that you would like to point fellow modders out to?  Maybe something that helped you along the way.

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Join the Ark Modding discord chat, ark modding forums, browse answers.unrealengine.com / forums.unrealengine.com . Google is your best friend, picture search anything you're not sure of and you're bound to find an example and or someone asking the same questions.

Picture search.... now why didn't I think of that??  Well it's been fun Samson!  I genuinely had a blast checking out the NPC mod and we have a video walk-through for all those interested.  I highly suggest you give it a shot because it will definitely surprise and amuse you.  I'll be looking forward to that cup of joe!  Samson, any last words or thanks?

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Just wanna say thank you to Wildcard for creating such an awesome game, thank you Complex for taking the time to interview me, the modding community appreciates your hard work, and thank you to all my supporting subscribers who are feeding me these great ideas, keep it coming!

Primitive+ Developers Blog

Hello my fellow Primitive+ fans!  Cedric here again. Lots has been going on behind the scenes since we last talked!  The mod is starting to gather quite the following and several people have reached out to me for help with blueprints or art for the mod.  If you’d like to pitch in, reach out to me and let me know what your expertise is!

I’ve been working on some of remodelling (walls, cement mixer, apiary some of the structures that I know will make it into the final cut.  You’ll start to see some of the models change to reflect a more permanent state.  The snap points and sizing issues on the structures that have been plaguing people will be solved with these structure remodels!  I’ve been trying to polish off the current content before adding some of the new ideas but things like balance changes will be a constant evolution.  Be sure to keep informing me when someone power levels on wood planks or takes down a fortress with a machete

In the very near future, you will start to see more concepts vs. structures and resources.  An example of this is a chance for sickness.  Another one being food deterioration.  To support the idea of sickness, there needs to be a window or transition for consumables to go from fresh to spoiled where currently there is not.

These are just a few of the things that are the drawing board.  In the next update there will be a new item added, the berry press.  With this, you’ll have an additional step when you are looking to make a cup of wine for your next dinner party.  The advantage is you’ll be able to make all types of cocktails with berries  Stimbull energy drink anyone!?! Until next time!

- Ced

Thanks Cedric for this weeks Workshop Spotlight, and for taking us through the Primitive+ development!

And with that concludes this week’s Crunch! If you happened to have missed it, make sure to check out yesterday's ARK Digest.

If you’ve got anything to share with us please get in touch, we’d love to see your creations. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @survivetheark - Facebook at www.facebook.com/survivetheark and Reddit at www.reddit.com/r/playark

Thanks everyone, see you again soon!

Much love,
Wildcard Jen and the ARK Survival Evolved Team

 

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[Avios]

<3 Jen, thanks for the Community Crunch! 

 

[Samson1388]

awesome work jen

[FireStormRising]

Honestly, I am profoundly disappointed that your Mod Liason is highlighting work......unbelievably amazing and beautiful work that must be a Herculean challenge to create for an ever changing program.....but can't be bothered to put a presence on his own workshop pages.  

I am referencing your Primitve Plus Unrestricted branch of your highlighted mod. I both love it and hate it, because it isn't working properly in some respects and there have been no comments in nearly a month from the developer.  

Questions have been asked in comments

Questions have been asked in discussion

I've posted questions on the main mod page

I've attempted to contact the developer directly and the mail wasn't even read, as of last night.

Clearly, your workload is enormous and I genuinely believe you are probably missing hours of sleep attempting to manage your new job responsibilities, including the official primitive servers, along with working on your mod. I am often one to say that the developers of Ark are attempting something very special with this creation and it is to be expected that things go wrong and they should spend their  precious time working on the game and not holding our hands. This applies to you, as well. I can not fathom how complex your work is, but try to see this from the player's view. 

This is what some players see;

You create a brilliant mod and we love it. 

The mod gets highlighted and you make a secondary version. 

You work diligently with the mod community to improve and correct problems. Engaging in conversation, promptly. 

You get hired to what is likely a dream job. 

Problems linger for weeks and you stop communicating. 

Offical servers are created with your Offical mod and that gets intermittent attention on its website. 

The secondary branch is silent. 

I'm not implying that you are some hateful money grubbing individual.  On the contrary, I suspect you are doing your best and working very hard to juggle too many things.  I think you've made something very impressive for a beautiful game and many people have had their gameplay enhanced by it.....love it.....and become passionate about it.  

As a result, I've become very disappointed and frustrated with a game that I really enjoy. I wiped my server clean, so we could start fresh with Primitive Plus Unrestricted. Unfortunately, some mods don't stack ( understandable, this is a work in progress ), but what we didn't know that the problem wasn't being resolved and all the PPU specific items (items we specifically wanted) were unavailable due to the other mods.  We continued to play, waiting on a resolution....that never came and was never addressed again. Removing the other mods didn't fix it. After several weeks of leveling and play and unsuccessful trouble shooting.....we wiped our server....again, to start fresh without the additional mods. It was the only solution available to us. This past month of play, wiped away and leaving a bad taste, because we DIDN'T KNOW if the problem would EVER  be addressed again. 

As far as I can tell PPU has been abandoned, based on its workshop page. I've gone to the various links and other locations, but if you can't post a single message at least once a week on your own workshop page....well, that speaks volumes. Even something that said, "I'm aware of the problem and still working on it, but I expect it to take weeks or have temporarily suspend work on it until next month"....something... anything. 

Yes, this is a game and not life and death. However, you created something amazing and offered it to us, got us excited and then failed to follow through. That's my issue. I think you're brilliant and I love your vision for this game. As frustrated as I am for the persistent bugs and glitches, I'm still using this mod and did that second wipe because I love this mod. I'm a fan, but feeling neglected. I've never been so enraptured by a game of any kind before, so I think it makes me more passionate than I would normally be. 

I'm sure some players will call me out for this, but I don't know how else to reach you or get your attention. Please, go to your Unrestricted workshop page and see what your very staunch supporters are feeling. 

If you read this all the way through, thank you...and my apologies.

[Mcfacepunch]

Hello I was wondering if character transfers will become available to offical servers I hate going to a different server and building up again 

[Thylacoleo]

u GuYs ARe Addicted To community CrUnches

[c7occ]

The bush people survival NPC mod needs to win the contest and become official single player content! ARK is based alot around your social skills and being able to make friends. After playing for a few month I definitely won't be leaving the ARK, yet as a Lone wolf I won't be playing online either. The NPC MOD could give lone wolf single players the FULL ARK exsperience. I'm an Introvert I've played in 15 servers I've been in 6 tribes and just like real life, I hate everyone. To be able to play single player and raid and be raided why taming NPC'S would be the dream. None the less Happy ARKING and thanks for all the hard work Dev's/modders, ARK is truly a work of art!

[MrDynamicMan]

Hmm, what? Last I heard it was complexminded who was the prim+ guy, not swords. Has the team been expanded? Is there a change of leadership? Or had he changed his online name and complex Is swords?

[c7occ]

4 hours ago, MrDynamicMan said:

Hmm, what? Last I heard it was complexminded who was the prim+ guy, not swords. Has the team been expanded? Is there a change of leadership? Or had he changed his online name and complex Is swords?

I have no Idea in all honesty ask him.

Edited April 2, 2016 by c7occ

[Jen]

5 hours ago, MrDynamicMan said:

Hmm, what? Last I heard it was complexminded who was the prim+ guy, not swords. Has the team been expanded? Is there a change of leadership? Or had he changed his online name and complex Is swords?

ComplexMinded is the Prim+ guy, he interviewed Swords on their mod (NPCs), and then talked about his own mod (Prim+).

[Fresonis]

@TimmyCarbine and @WelcomeToParadise Gratzzz on the ARKitect Award!!! Awesome creativity !!! Nice to see, keep it up!!

@Sentoki and @Okim Grattzzz on the ARKart Award, always nice to see these artworks!!  

[K4LLA]

Oh my, thank you for this honor! And I really love that Freyaloi's artpiece ♥

[Sentoki]

On 03/04/2016 at 10:57 AM, Fresonis said:

@TimmyCarbine and @WelcomeToParadise Gratzzz on the ARKitect Award!!! Awesome creativity !!! Nice to see, keep it up!!

@Sentoki and @Okim Grattzzz on the ARKart Award, always nice to see these artworks!!  

Thanks so much :3

[GP]

1 minute ago, GSPeZ said:

How come pc didn't get Breeding mechanics phase 2 can pc not handle it and Xbox can ??

Some times items on a Patch get delayed due to more work being dedicated to other items if they need extra attention. Sometimes items will be postponed because there was not enough time to have it ready. There are plenty of possibilities, but it has nothing to do with the PC not being able to handle it.

Also please bear in mind that the Xbox Patch Notes were made prior to the PC Patch and therefore it may simply be that the Xbox Patch Notes haven't been amended since the PC ones were. Please also bear in mind that what the Xbox Patch Notes currently say are not always 100% set in stone.

[RHYS123]

Are the under water loot drops in xb1 because the loot dose not spawn as often if that can be made a thing in a updait were you choose how often drops come down pleas thx for the grate game and good look in the new offece if thats true the internet is full of lies thease day some one said that wild card moved to new place thats why theres been no updaits but i am not fused i can live without updaits as long as the develiper are happy

 

[TxHotty]

Thank you for the Community Crunch...I wanted to ask if anyone knew if they would be bringing back the ability to make platforms bigger with the ceiling foundation trick??

[ThickFreedom]

I love that dino star-wars image. 

[Ennylia]

Thanks for the Community Crunch!

I always like the fan art! I really like the Northward by Freyaloi that is featured this time.

[stevneuf007]

Like the community, great concepts.

 

[wrathemperor666]

I would like to see an adjustment to distance from foundation build limit. The structural integrity of thatch makes sense at 2, but wood should be further, and stone further yet. You could increase each level of structure type by 1. IE...thatch=2, wood=3, stone=4, metal=5. I'm just saying that it would make a lot of sense. 

[ilikefish124]

This is my newest Ark cinematic video. 

 It would be lovely if you guys would check it out and give me some constructive criticism on the video!

[BravoXCompany]

man, thats an awesome mod. i wish you guys were really adding NPC's. Everyone i mention it to agrees that its a fantastic idea.

[kottadragon]

cool