Ranger1

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up!!! Tough competition this time around, which is GREAT!

The "experts" have changed their minds on how the Spino really looked more often than most people change socks. I wouldn't get too used to thinking of that one as accurate, the odds are good it will change again.

As far as the new look of the Argentavis, here is something you should consider folks. Much has been said about their look turning more towards that of a vulture, which has put some people a bit up in arms. While there is some truth in this, it would likely be more accurate to say that the new Argy model is much more in line with the look of the modern Condor. If memory serves the Condor is in the family of new world vultures (and is primarily a carrion eater), and yet is still considered a bird that is not to be trifled with. Vultures may have the common image of being weak and cowardly, however this is not a mistake that most people make when they see a Condor. ARKs version of the Argentavis is likely intended to be a something of a common ancestor between new world vultures ( family Cathartidae ) and old world vultures (family Accipitridae which also includes eagles, hawks, and kites). A carrion eater that is also fully capable of engaging live prey with strong claw and beak and dropping attacks. So whether you're a fan of the new look or not, where the Argy (or the Condor) is concerned I think you'll find that to plenty of folks that "bald is beautiful, baby"... in it's own special way.

Not to be "that guy" but cloning is a much simpler (not to mention vastly different) procedure than gene splicing. Cloning is making an exact copy, gene splicing is introducing completely new characteristics through altering a creatures DNA. In game terms it would also be a hugely more involved procedure to allow hybrid creature creation, requiring a vast number of somehow interchangeable art assets to be created. This doesn't touch on the equally complicated issues of game balance and abilities (among other things) for the newly created creatures. This sounds more like a central focus the game would need to be designed around from the ground up instead of something to incorporate into an update.

I could be very wrong on this, but I take it to mean that it randomizes the places that drops appear.

This post concerns me. I am no longer sure that 10,000 Jelly Doughnuts is your real name. Are you sure you aren't really 12,000 Jelly Doughnuts?

You can when the free DLC in question started it's life as nothing more than a player created map that was extremely popular on unofficial servers and in single player. It quickly became part of the sponsored mods program, and then eventually the popularity of the map became so high it ended up officially supported as DLC. The modding team was brought on board as a specialized team dedicated to completing the map and working on integration issues. This allowed more ARK players to experience the map as the final area's were being completed... with the caveat that players needed to be aware that the map was not yet complete. For reference: Ragnarok was released on June 12, 2017 for the PC, Mac and Linux version of ARK. The map is planned to be finished at the end of the year 2017 according to its developers. If I'm not mistaken I believe the last two desert area's and a dungeon area will be released in a few days, followed by a larger focus on resolving reported issues. The sponsored mod program, and potential for those mods to become officially supported (and therefore available to players on official servers) has been extremely popular with the modding community and player community alike... allowing official server players the opportunity to use content that would otherwise only be available to players on modded servers, as well as in some cases to be able to give feedback to the mod creators during the development process. The Ragnarok team in particular are a great example of this as they frequently live stream while working on the map, taking feedback and explaining design decisions in real time as the map is created. As to the rest of your post, keep in mind that the development of a persistent world game like ARK (and its related DLC) never really stops. EVE Online is an excellent example of this. That game has essentially been "in development" since it was released nearly 15 years ago with constant iterations, improvements to basic game play mechanics, and expansions. Interestingly, many of those changes made over the years very closely parallel changes we are seeing in ARK today... and some of those changes were first introduced (whenever possible) on an "opt in" basis (much like the option to try the Ragnarok map if a player chose to do so) before final integration for the entire player base. Obviously they could not do that in all situations. For example they could not have half the player base using 10 standard drones while the rest used 5 more powerful drones, or some using turrets that hit twice as hard (but at fired half the speed) while the rest of the players used the old versions. But in other cases this wasn't a problem, and players that wished to had a chance to get hands on with new features as they were developed. It's one of the reasons why EVE continues to grow and evolved even after a decade and a half, and a similar methodology is working very well for the development of the Ragnarok map.

The Ragnarok map is a free DLC (it didn't cost you a penny) that is still in development. If you wish you may play it in it's current unfinished state, or you can just as easily decide to wait until it is actually done. If you do decide to play it now, your constructive feedback and bug reports have value as the last two areas are put together and the final polishing of the map begins. Just be aware that you will find issues and errors that have not yet been addressed. If that's a problem, you should wait until it is complete.

You're confusing me. If you're talking about the Arkitech contest those are all a tie for first place. There would appear to be no second place awards in the video portion of the contest this time around.

I just figured they were married....

No I don't think so. I believe the crunch was delayed due to last weekend being taken up with the charity stream.

ShipWrekt! your cinematic entry was very nicely done! In fact all of the entries were well presented. Congratulations to all of the winners and runners up.

Well done, great build!

I believe it's going to be $20.

I set up a new breeding facility on the beach beside the Blue Obelisk on Ragnarok. It should be self sustaining, and will soon populate that rather peaceful beach front property with a healthy population of fully color mutated "unclaimed" Jerboa and Pachys. There was already a healthy "breeding in the wild" population of almost fully color mutated Parasaurs living there... spares generated while creating several strains of fully color mated Parasaurs for another habitat. Even unfinished they were just too pretty to kill off. The main floor is devoted to the breeding pens, with fencing designed to keep the adults in (and breeding) while still allowing the young to freely leave the facility to start their new "unclaimed" lives. The second floor is raised on pillars above the first, and is a split level design with plenty of light entering through the large glass walls contained in eco's stable decor mod (used for the bulk of the facility). There is also a dock out back with a motorized raft for coastal excursions. This facility may be only temporary, as since there are so few predators in that area (and the temperature is right for unassisted hatching throughout the mid-day hours) it won't take much to get self sustaining "unclaimed" populations of everything I end up introducing. The Parasaurs have already had 6 or 7 successful wild births in the last couple of weeks. The only question right now though is... what to introduce next?

Huge congratulations to the winners and the runners up this week!

Нет, устаревшие серверы (старые официальные серверы) не смогут передавать что-либо новым серверам, включая символы. Они будут полностью разделены, но все равно будут полностью поддерживаться.

Wow, that's some stiff competition this time around. Well done everyone!

They decided to go ahead and do PVE as well.

Titus, you do realize that they were going to leave PVE completely alone up until about 1/2 hour ago, but changed their mind due to the strong response of the player base. They are trying to be responsive to the players needs and requests, it's not a grand conspiracy.

Congratulations to everyone, amazing work! @kortniechan The ARK Video contest is by design pretty open and freeform, intended to show off the most creative content entered outside of straight builds. While I really do understand what you are saying, I have to say that I think that the winning entry falls pretty firmly into the "creative" category. I hope you don't take any offense to that point of view. Now as far as the contest rules are concerned, I don't think they need a huge overhaul. I don't enter every week, and when I do I have had a pretty mixed bag of successes and not placing. I have never felt that the contest was skewed in any way, though obviously the more you enter the more chances you have to win. (as long as you put some of yourself into each entry). Some folks do try and "farm" the contest, I suppose that's to be expected when a generous cash prize is involved, but usually those attempts are fairly obvious to spot and I don't think are a significant problem. Nor do I have a problem with how ties are handled, especially if circumstances have postponed the contest by a week. WC doesn't have to shell out extra prizes in that situation, but they often do. I do feel that a restriction to 1 video per category wouldn't be a bad thing, but if a person wants to (and has the entries to do so) they should be able to freely enter as many DIFFERENT contests as they like. This would avoid folks flooding a particular contest with their backlog of videos simply for the exposure. I fully understand the temptation, but it is really something that in my opinion should be avoided. That being said, I believe that the current emphasis in all contest categories on creativity trumping sheer size or fancy mods allows these contests to function as intended. I rely heavily on mods, and have zero issue if a small vanilla build wins by being more clever (or beautiful) than mine. By the same token, sometimes creative use of or blending of mods can be an art form all in itself. I also feel it "might" not be out of line to stipulate that a particular video or piece of art should only be entered into ANY of the contests only once, but that would require someone to keep accurate record of all of the entries, and that might be a bit problematic. Winning entries at the very least should be restricted from resubmission, but I don't think we've ever had a problem with that before anyway. More often than not something gets entered two weeks in a row because someone wasn't sure if they got their entry submitted in time. I know that we do have a section of the forums devoted to featured art/videos, but a permanent section devoted to contest winning entries (organized by contest and date) might be a nice touch. Something that new players can find and browse through easily. Or perhaps even just an easy to find archive with all of the Crunches grouped together in an organized fashion might be easier. And finally, I don't think anyone would object if more contests or "places" (1st, 2nd, 3rd) were introduced... but in saying this I also realize that doing so might be more complicated that it first appears... and in no way do I want to give the impression that these contests in their current form are not appreciated or fall short in any way. We all know you don't have to do this, and that it doesn't "just happen" every week. All of your hard work in judging and organizing the Crunch is greatly appreciated by the community. That goes for the people participating as well as those that simply love viewing the entries.

Nicely done Doc.

Congratulations to the winners and runners up, well done! You were up against some amazingly good competition this week.

Everyone did an excellent job, and LameWolf crew your voice work and script was top notch this time around. I also have to say to SWChris, it's videos that go into that kind of detail that really help newer players wrap their heads around what can be done with ARKs building mechanics. I'm also really pleased to see the submissions in the screenshot section, some of them are extremely well done!

The original intent was to create an eruption event, presumably on some sort of schedule. However that was a bit too resource intensive (other issues were more important to spend dev time on) so instead we'll just have a post eruption volcano now. Lava pools around the top, and such.