ashgcy Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Welcome back festive fish! And Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings to you all! Looking back as we come near the end of 2023, it's truly been a wonderful year for all things Sunken! It's been so humbling to see how many more people have joined our little server and shown their excitement and interest in our project! A massive thank you go to you, our community, for all the wonderful support, videos, artwork, screenshots and love that you give us when you share how you feel about our project! Sappy, end of year thoughts aside though, what would Christmas be without a gift? While progress has slowed a little going into the holiday period, we've got another ASA model to share with you, the Marine Iguana! In addition, we'll be doing a creature feature on the top dog theropod of TSW, Altispinax! We're also including a section to look back at all the stuff we've done this year, in case you missed some of the previous scoops and to really give 2023 a proper TSW-themed send off! If this is your first time diving into the deep end, we are a dedicated team of individuals who are looking to spruce up the ocean biome in the same way that Scorched Earth offered a unique, biome specific challenge to survival. New creatures, resources, structures, items and more, all set on a huge custom map, we're looking to give ARK's oceans the TLC they deserve! The main goal is to bridge that huge gap between early and late game ocean exploration, and make it much more viable and more fun to live a life beneath the waves! This is unofficial content and is only related to our mod. It is in no way related with the official game and its content releases. Let's dive into the scoop! MARINE IGUANA SNEAK PEEK Your search for the perfect early game companion ends here! When your Raptor is too scared to get its feet wet, and your Parasaur is too picky to eat salty seaweed, this loveable lug of a lizard has your back! The Marine Iguana will be the premier semi-aquatic mount of early TSW survival! These giant lizards may seem lazy when they're lounging under the tropical sun, but they're more than ready to dart off in a flash! These starter tames are able to gather a healthy abundance of seaweed and can protect you from most medium sized predators with a powerful whip of their tails. Definitely an invaluable way to start off your journey on the Sunken shores! Massive thanks go to Nitz for his work bringing the Marine Iguana to life! And for those of you interested in a little hint to TSW's lore, these docile reptiles are commonly used by tribes all around the archipelago as an introduction to taming the wildlife. Mastering taming is key to surviving on the ARKs, and it's a lot safer to go after a skittish herbivore as your first choice than a giant predator! New arrivals to the ARK network are subjected to a "rite of passage" where they have to successfully domesticate a Marine Iguana before they can be trusted to survive on their own! ALTISPINAX CREATURE FEATURE This theropod seems to have narcissistically declared itself as your favourite TSW creature... Altispinax is the self imposed ruler of the surface regions, and is one of the strongest semi-aquatic tames available in the ASE branch of the mod. But what was the behind the scenes production like for the High Spined General! One of Altispinax's most iconic traits is its roar, which has the ability to dispel the pack bonuses of any nearby pack animals. We decided very early on in its development that we needed a solid counter to pack tactics. Pack creatures in ARK are powerful and fun... unless you're on the receiving end. Creatures with high enough pack bonuses are very frustrating to kill, even with tames waaay above their weight class (looking at you Artifact of the Cunning cave!). And after WC gave the most common creature in the ocean a pack bonus, we knew a proper anti-pack creature was sorely required! While the anti-pack creature niche was solid, executing the mechanics was a little bit bumpy. In early testing, while the debuff that Altispinax applied successfully removed pack-related effects like Pack Mate, Pack Leader and gang bonuses, after it ended the bonuses wouldn't come back! Another key part of Altispinax's kit is its slowing bite. From the start, we knew we didn't want this to be another bleed creature. Bleed was a great mechanic when it was first introduced, powerful against large tames but rare enough that it wasn't oppressive. However, it's been a long time since the first bleed creatures, and now a decent chunk of ARK's creature roster can bleed their foes, and we didn't want to add to the oversaturated pile. However, coming up with what to replace the bleed with had us stumped. We tossed up a variety of ideas, from an RTS mode to an ability to shoot fish-based projectiles, before finally settling on the slowing effect. Underwater combat can be quite floaty at times, so being able to slow down an opponent is invaluable if you don't want to be swimming in circles! Thankfully, the Crippled debuff was much friendlier on the code than Altispinax's roar! TSW'S 2023 It has truly been a very busy year for TSW! 2023 started with us releasing a huge update that added in Ambulocetus and the model for the Sea Scale Armour. After a few months of bug fixes and balance changes, we then added 3 more creatures too! In late April, Altispinax, Henodus and Materpiscis made their debut on TSW, along with an enormous Seagrass Plains biome below the Ice Caps in the northeast. Then in late August, we released one of our largest updates to the mod! Sunken Spino Coral Golem and Sea Urchins swam onto the scene in the brand new the Tropical Archipelago biome, alongside returning features like currents and revamps to the map's environments and resources. In addition, we even added some custom music themes for morning, noon and night! And that's not even mentioning the start of the Sunken Scoop way back in early August! Crazy to think that our little team has been running it for over 4 months, and we're really excited to showcase a whole YEAR of scoops in 2024! See below for a recap of all the scoops! Links are provided if you want to check back on any you missed too! Sunken Scoop 1 introduced the scoop, revealed the winners of our creature vote and added new creatures to the roster Sunken Scoop 2 shared concept art of various creatures on the roster and showcased Edestus' model Sunken Scoop 3 brought with it the Tropics Update and all of its new creatures and features Sunken Scoop 4 showed off model progress for WIP creatures and gave a behind-the-scenes look of Anomalocaris' development Sunken Scoop 5 showcased even more model reveals and a look into the devkit for Edestus' flaming attacks Sunken Scoop 6 was where the plan for ASA was revealed, alongside concept art for Magma Turtle Sunken Scoop 7 revealed updated concept art for Thalassocnus and Tyrant Shrimp Sunken Scoop 8 was an almost documentary-like exploration of all the new biomes coming to our ocean TLC mod Sunken Scoop 9 was when the wyrms slithered onto the scene with some awe-inspiring models, as well as sharing custom art a dynamic, volcanic duo Sunken Scoop 10 brought the wyrms to life with some incredible animations, alongside marking the completion of custom artwork for our entire roster of 40+ custom creatures I'll try to not be too cheesy, but thank you for all your support this year. TSW is our labour of love, and seeing how much our fanbase has grown this year has been really heartwarming and humbling. If you've made youtube videos, drawn fanart, taken screenshots or even just hung around on our discord, we'd like to extend a massive thanks to you, the community! Here's to an amazing 2024 for TSW and beyond! COMMUNITY CORNER The Community Corner will open back up again in 2024. We're very excited to see the TSW content you create in the new year! Big things coming, and we're more than eager to share in the excitement with you! That's all for this issue of the Sunken Scoop, thanks for tuning in! We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve, and we can't wait to see you in 2024! Have a wonderful timezone! If this is your first time seeing TSW, check out the links below to find out more! Please note that if you want to play our mod, you need both the map and creature mod active.Discord: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArkSunkenMap Mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2182740759 Creature Mod:https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2182770728 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udam Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Great As always Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now