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Newcomers story


Eleusius

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Newcomers story

Hi all,

I suppose those who are reading the forums have played for a long time, but I felt like telling a newcomers story might be fun for some of you guys. I'm completely new to the game, downloaded it perhaps a week ago and decided I'd start playing local to find out which buttons to press and what to do to survive. I suppose there's always something left to learn, but to get started it was probably a good idea. And while I did die a few times, the recent story of a survival might be much more interesting.

Ok, so I started out alone on that island (well it felt like an island - I haven't been around it, yet) and started learning. I crafted some clothes, basic tools, built a first hut, a campfire. Good. Things started to work. I started taming a few dinos. Things seemed easy. There were plenty of berries everywhere - so I never felt short on food. Stone and wood were a plenty. The only shortage was on hide, so I could never come up with a saddle or a workbench or anything that requires large amounts of hide. Creating a hide-set or armor was a major undertaking, but I did it and the dinos supplied me with plenty of carrying capacity, albeit not riding possibility. My little family had grown to consist of a stegosaurus, a trike, a friendly parasaurus and 2 friendly little Lystrosaurus, a pair to be precise. I have set them to breeding, but nothing has happened, yet. I started to feel confident, despite some unfortunate deaths.

I was still lacking hide and I desired to saddle at least one of my dinos. So I eventually decided to explore a nearby swamp. I had noticed this area to be more dangerous for several reasons. One of which was I had died to a Titanoboa when I had got lost a few days earlier. However I had also seen instructions on how to get a lot of hide from these animals and I was willing to take up on them. This time knowing what to expect and being prepared (with stimulants and weapons and tactics and most of all my trike, who had proven a capable fighter when attacked by a raptor on the beach). So I took my usual exploration team (Trike + Para) and went out into the swamp, as usual collecting some stuff along the way. I was amazed when I stumbled upon those huge Paraceratherium, that felt very peaceful there. So I slowly made my way forward into the swamp. Everything seemed fine, but my prey (the Titanoboa) was nowhere to be seen.

Then, suddenly everything changed. I literally stumbled upon a Sarcosuchus. It was suddenly in front of me and attacked. I immediately retreated trying to find a tactical position, but my trike attacked selflessly while my parasaur (though set to flee and follow at distance) seemed to hug me in fear. It was permanently in my way not allowing me to fight. I had no idea how the trike and sarco would match up. Despite the fact that it had proven it's fighting ability this was certainly an enemy of a class I had never matched up again. I was not willing to run - I liked my creatures and I had spent some effort taming them. Besides they were stuffed with goods. I started shooting the sarco with arrows. Despite many words here, these events didn't take very long and soon my trike went down. The victorious Sarco however ran around the body of my trike and I kept shooting. Then I didn't trust my eyes as the Sarco stopped moving. I was expecting it to be unconscious, since I thought I was shooting paralyzing arrows. It was quite a while later that I realized I had switched to stone-heads (since the paralyzers are useless against the boa anyways).

In the inventory of the Sarco I found a full leather suit and some other stuff, indicating that it had fed on another non-survivor earlier. Well - my Trike gone and probably my para, too (or maybe the para died in the oncoming events, I don't remember exactly) I was panting. That's been way too exciting for me. Well - I was alive and I had a dead Sarco and a dead trike in front of me - so make the best of it and harvest them. When I pulled out my axe, the boa attacked. The most unfortunate moment. I was poisoned immediately. I switched to spear and stupidly opened my inventory, since I thought I had the stimulants packed there. I then realized I had put them in the quick-access for convenient access. Well - things you do when you get rushed. Second time within a few minutes. I was nervous as hell. But after activating my stimulant, I switched weapon to spear and applied the tactics I had learned before. Move backwards and keep stabbing. It worked. I was drained (from the stimulant), panting and felt exhausted even from directing events here at my keyboard. But I was still alive. The poison had vanished, the Boa was dead, too, and I was alive. Oh well. The family had lost two of it's most reliable fellows, though. But I was still in the swamp. So I harvested the boa and tried to find my way out, keeping away from areas that looked even remotely dangerous. Without a suitable transport, the valuable prime-meat perished on my way home. I hadn't had any before and now it went to waste. But I made my way home. There I was ... trusted stone walls and inventory intact (except for the stuff on my two dinos) I was home.

Now I have to mourn my two fellows. Oh... and get new ones, of course. And hopefully, finally get a saddle.

So that's been my first days on Ark. What do you think?

Should I abandon my local play and join a server? I like to coop.... and there's soooo much to learn, still.

Anyways - I hope you guys had some fun reading.

Regards,

Eleusius.

 

 

 

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If you want to play on a server I highly recommend unofficial PvE for a relatively new player like you. Otherwise you might get really frustrated because of the hardcore-grind, toxic players, longer taming times, etc. I joined my first server after I discovered the whole Island had a huge base with an army of Dilos, Dodos, Raptors and Trikes and some advanced stuff like a preserving bin and forges (it was 2 months after the EA-release, so there wasn't anything modern in the game :D ).  So after I joined the server and set up a wooden hut I tamed a Bronto with pillars and that it took 8 hours to tame. 2 hours later it was killed by 3 as*holes on Rexes and an Argentavis - so yeah. I gave up on the server idea for a long long time after that!

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Or, play PvP

In PvP, you won't be mourning your dead dinos. You'll learn that dinos are expendable & consumable. You'll learn how to hide really well, how to build small and you'll learn ark diplomacy - making friends with bigger tribes so they don't destroy you. PvP is hard but it's far more rewarding IMO than PvE

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Hey all,

 

thanks for taking the effort to reply.
I am on PC - that's my platform. I don't think I'll go PvP anytime soon. Way way way too little experience. Besides I'm not all that competitive. I'd rather enjoy the landscape and interactions. How do I find inofficial servers? If the official ones are prone to lags and crashes, that doesn't sound like fun.

Glad to hear from you!

Regards,

Eleusius.

 

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Best to try both.  

Official gives you a whole network of hundreds of servers to choose from, lots of people to trade with and learn from.

It's a bit McDonald's you know exactly what to expect,  the servers are the same the level of the bosses and the difficulty is the same. Which legitimizes what you do,  If you beat a boss on Official no one can dispute that achievement

Unofficial is a bit more like choosing a local take-away, you aren't quite sure when you enter what you are going to get. The owner may be a diuck and give preferential treatment to his regulars, there is also more chance that the next to you want to visit it will have stopped trading. But they may have some specials that you just can't get anywhere else. 

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1 hour ago, Eleusius said:

Hello again,

 

is there a chance I can get a server without electricity, firearms and Tek? And no supply-drops :)

I like to go with the flavor and this has a sort of stone-age-flavor.

Regards,

Eleusius.

 

On unoffial you can disable drops. Dunno about firearms and tek. As you learn more of the story, you'll learn that those are all part of it. Especially that element powered tek...

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On 6/22/2020 at 8:59 AM, Eleusius said:

Hey all,

 

thanks for taking the effort to reply.
I am on PC - that's my platform. I don't think I'll go PvP anytime soon. Way way way too little experience. Besides I'm not all that competitive. I'd rather enjoy the landscape and interactions. How do I find inofficial servers? If the official ones are prone to lags and crashes, that doesn't sound like fun.

Glad to hear from you!

Regards,

Eleusius.

 

I think there needs to be a mention that while officials do lag more unofficial servers in my experience crash far more due to mods they have running. Most unofficial servers are dead but a few are populated and really good. Try to find one that is well establish and been around for a long time. I’ve experienced unofficial server vanishing after admin got tired of running it and all my effort vanished. That’s when I went pvp official and never looked back. 
 

Find a good unofficial with not too many mods and I think you will enjoy it.

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  • 1 month later...

gonna try to read the giant text wall and answer questions or make comments along the way. :P

I know hide seems like a pain to collect now, but in about 50 levels it will get easy.....but in another 50 levels it will be hardest its ever been. enjoy it while it lasts. XD
You will find many many snakes along the swamp, but yeah they can be a pain....Instead of hunting snakes however, id strongly urge you to try your hand at the pigs that wander around in the swamp.....they are easy to kill as they will not attack back, but due to their speed, Id recommend hitting them with a bola before attacking them. Otherwise they will run away.

Bravo my good friend, very bravo....
Honestly Id avoid online game play, while it may be cool to hook up with some people on a private server, on official, you will prolly just have greivers on you all day long. My mom tried official, regrets it still.


A bit of advice on what to do next, and how to handle yourself at a low level.....first and foremost, try to take some time to level up.....while taming some of the herbivores may seem easy as all they need is berries, you will find yourself needing a bit different tactics and equipment later on. The very first piece of equipment you will need to invest in is bola's. These will be useful in acquiring a raptor, another parasaur, and the first available flyer, a pterdon. Bola's will lock your target down for a few seconds and will allow you to either use tranq arrows, or just a simple club! Iv caught many raptors with the bola and club combination. Same with the others.
However if you decide to aquire a raptor, you will need meat. Regular raw meat is ok, however if your capable of knocking out a raptor and then gathering raw prime meat via attacking some snakes, then you can get better taming efficiency with that fancy prime meat.

Good luck and if you got any questions about the rest of the game, come on by and send a hollar

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On 7/29/2020 at 1:55 PM, Eleusius said:

Hello again ;)
as of now, I'm running a dedicated server on my own machine whenever I'm willing to play. I've found that after progressing some, the standalone version becomes a bit buggy and prone to crashes of different sorts and having a dedicated server here really eases gameplay.

Ttyl ;)

Eleusius

Hello,

 

If you are interested in posting your doings to a community that has similar interests we have a community thread running "What did you do in ARK today?" You'll find it here in General.

 

We post our daily stories and get a good chance to read about others' experiences too! Great way to learn without feeling like following a guide.

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On 6/23/2020 at 10:49 AM, johnm81 said:

I think there needs to be a mention that while officials do lag more unofficial servers in my experience crash far more due to mods they have running. Most unofficial servers are dead but a few are populated and really good. Try to find one that is well establish and been around for a long time. I’ve experienced unofficial server vanishing after admin got tired of running it and all my effort vanished. That’s when I went pvp official and never looked back. 
 

Find a good unofficial with not too many mods and I think you will enjoy it.

To every post like this - there's dozens of long term servers whom care about their community. Its unfortunate that you base this opinion on joining one server.

 

I've never had a server vanish that I've spent time into. On unofficial you get to experience the game, instead of fight the official updates and bugs / server crashes. Official servers are WAY worse than unofficial ones for lagging and disconnects.

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On 7/30/2020 at 4:25 AM, wizard03 said:

[...]
Bravo my good friend, very bravo....

[...]
Good luck and if you got any questions about the rest of the game, come on by and send a hollar

Wow... thanks a bunch for the heads-up. Means a lot to me!

I've stopped adding to this thread - with this tiny exception and started posting in "What did you do in ark today" (or similar - the thread d1nk recommended further down). I like that.

Now - reason for coming back to this thread is that I have 2 questions. One: You said I might give you a hollar if I come up with any more questions. Now replying to this thread certainly isn't the primary choice for that. So - here's the first question: How would I address you directly? Are there options like "direct message" in this forum?

Second: I want to react to posts such as yours. I've seen others do it and a little heart popping up at the bottom of some posts indicating a reaction. I haven't found how to do that, either. Seems I need some pointers on how to use this forum.

Anyways - thanks again!

Eleusius.

 

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2 hours ago, Eleusius said:

Wow... thanks a bunch for the heads-up. Means a lot to me! I've stopped adding to this thread - with this tiny exception and started posting in "What did you do in ark today" (or similar - the thread d1nk recommended further down). I like that.
Now - reason for coming back to this thread is that I have 2 questions. One: You said I might give you a hollar if I come up with any more questions. Now replying to this thread certainly isn't the primary choice for that. So - here's the first question: How would I address you directly? Are there options like "direct message" in this forum?

Second: I want to react to posts such as yours. I've seen others do it and a little heart popping up at the bottom of some posts indicating a reaction. I haven't found how to do that, either. Seems I need some pointers on how to use this forum.
Anyways - thanks again! Eleusius.

well if you ever have a question, or something your truly curious about, just go ahead and start a new topic to get the problem figured out relatively quickly. But if you wanna do private messages, just click on a name tag and it will send you to their profile, and from there you can find the "send a message" button.
I get on once or twice a day and take a quick look to see if there is something I can help or offer assistance with, as well as any LOL moments that appear. But as for full blown "this is what I did today" its best to use that other topic. But when it comes to questions, don't be bashful. Create a new topic and figure things out.

As for the ability to "react" to other peoples comments, there is a little greyed out heart symbol at the bottem right of everyones topics. If you hover over it, it gives a small handfull of reactions you can post......surprise, sad, thanks, and like are some of the reactions you can click on.

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On 7/30/2020 at 5:11 PM, d1nk said:

To every post like this - there's dozens of long term servers whom care about their community. Its unfortunate that you base this opinion on joining one server.

 

I've never had a server vanish that I've spent time into. On unofficial you get to experience the game, instead of fight the official updates and bugs / server crashes. Official servers are WAY worse than unofficial ones for lagging and disconnects.

Stop being such a fan boy one way or the other. There is good and bad on both sides and you have to be real about it. If, by your own admission, admit that you have heard the comment of servers vanishing "to every post like this" from multiple posts that you need to reply to them all in this one statement, then it means its happens enough to be noticed.

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On 8/8/2020 at 6:56 PM, johnm81 said:

Stop being such a fan boy one way or the other. There is good and bad on both sides and you have to be real about it. If, by your own admission, admit that you have heard the comment of servers vanishing "to every post like this" from multiple posts that you need to reply to them all in this one statement, then it means its happens enough to be noticed.

You tell me to not base my opinion on one thing (being a fan boy) yet your assumption that servers are unreliable is based off ONE server you played on. 

 

Of course it happens enough to notice, there's thousands upon thousands of servers. I feel you're just a bit defensive because I slagged the terrible official servers.

 

On unofficial you get to actually play the game instead of the lagg fest and bullpoop you see on public servers.

 

Will see you in SWDYDIAT thread OP :)

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On 8/10/2020 at 3:30 PM, d1nk said:

Of course it happens enough to notice,

And that is my point. We must acknowledge that there are pros and cons to both officials and non-officials. 

On 8/10/2020 at 3:30 PM, d1nk said:

I feel you're just a bit defensive because I slagged the terrible official servers.

If that was the case why would I have advised the OP to join a non-official?? I see the pros and cons of both. We all need to.

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