Arambourgiania

That's what I haven't had the opportunity to test yet but in theory A:SA's localized rendering feature should help with the tethering issue.

Final verdict: there is NO option to host a local dedicated server. The only custom game options available are singleplayer and non-dedicated. I read somewhere the non-dedicated sessions have an eight-player limit, so if you have a small group of friends to play with that option should work fine especially with A:SA's instanced rendering feature which I can't yet confirm but suspect improves the tethering limitations that A:SE had. Unfortunately A:SA's initial release build is so unoptimized I actually can't play it right now despite having a PC that by all counts should handle it fine at least on moderate graphics settings, so I am currently unable to experiment with the non-dedicated feature further.

Well by now I think the answer is we'll just have to wait and see, so I'm probably gonna end up buying a Steam copy after it drops and experiment with the server hosting myself. I'll post my findings here for anyone else who wants to know.

Interesting, I missed where they had mentioned that. Hopefully it gets resolved soon?

The reason they are not enabling crossplay between Steam and consoles right now is because Steam is more efficient to update so they are going to use the Steam version of the game as a testing ground for working out any issues that come up after release, and when they are confident they have a fully-polished product they will at that point sync the Steam version with the console versions and enable crossplay. They explained this in their recent FAQ. Consoles having a delayed release is more of a side-effect to this. We can all agree this whole entire circus act has been done very poorly but it is what it is and at least we're getting A:SA soon and so far it looks great. I am definitely not holding my breath that it will be an absolutely smooth gameplay experience at first though, the whole thing seems so rushed.

I've been keeping my eyes open for information on this but as of yet I still haven't seen anything definitive so I'm taking to the forums. On the Xbox version of ARK: Survival Evolved there is an option in the Host\Local screen called Run Dedicated Server which uses that copy of the game to host a server on the machine the game is being run on. This local dedicated server can then be accessed from a second machine if one has such resources available to them. This is how my friends and I have been playing ARK for years because a couple of us have extra PCs we've ran dedicated servers on. Unfortunately on the Steam version of Survival Evolved, even though the Run Dedicated Server option appears to be available, it doesn't work. Hosting a local dedicated server for the Steam version of the game is much more complicated and usually requires third-party software to streamline. What I have been trying to figure out is what local dedicated server hosting is going to look like with ARK: Survival Ascended? Is there any good information available on this yet or are we waiting until the game drops before we learn such details? I don't want to buy two copies on Steam if the Steam version of Survival Ascended ends up not having easy local dedicated server hosting capabilities as is the case with Steam's Survival Evolved. Basically I want to know, for local dedicated server hosting purposes, if I should buy Survival Ascended on Steam or Xbox, or if it will matter at all?

LOL everyone, ASA will be out in like a week at this point so you don't have long to wait for gameplay. Chill out y'all. That Dreadnaughtus looks AMAZING.

I was really hoping for the giant hermit crab, but I'm sure I'll like whatever Wildcard does with Shastasaurus. The final result could have been worse in my opinion.

I really don't expect much from the concept artists... But that thing does not remotely look like a scansoriopterygid. It is a dodo with bat wings. 💀

Dang, no Aberration creature vote yet?

Uh... They literally just said Let's take the Concavenator from Ark: Additions and make it bigger. Everything down to the taming method is the same. That is just lazy, and disingenuous to that mod's creative liberty.