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ARK Official Launch Trailer! For those of you who missed us this morning on the Twitch at Gamescom livestream, we just premiered the official launch trailer for ARK: Survival Evolved! Watch it below! The past two years have been one heck of a journey for all of us. Millions of ARK players worldwide have built gigantic bases, captured and trained armies of dinosaurs, crafted armories full of weapons and eaten billions of pounds of berries. With your help, we are days away from releasing the full ARK: Survival Evolved game to the world! Come August 29th we'll be entering the next phase of our journey and exit early access. Players who have been with us throughout this early access program and were excited with the launch of each update have even more reason to be excited post-launch! ARK will continue to grow with new content at launch and beyond as we continue to have a behemoth amount of additional gameplay, creatures, and story elements in the works. The adventure has truly only just begun! With every Explorer Note you've discovered on the Island a piece of the story has come along with it. Every artifact, every apex drops, every boss battle, it has all been leading up to this moment. Now it's time to understand the bigger picture and begin to discover why every Survivor wakes up on the beach with a diamond shaped implant in their arm. Are you ready for what's in store? Will you be strong enough to take on the challenges ahead? Do you, your tribe, and your army have what it takes to reach Ascension? Only time will tell... The launch trailer also features the first in-game footage for the two newest critters to the Island, the playful Otter and the fiery Phoenix. This furry little Otter makes a cozy companion that can ride around on your shoulders and can help retrieve silica pearls for you! The flaming Phoenix bursts into fire with the heat of the desert. Operating at impossible temperatures, this legendary flyer can cook resources just by holding them. Perhaps it could even be ridden, if somehow one could acquire gear fireproof enough to withstand the flames blazing across its feathers. Lastly, we get our first look at the Tek Shield and Tek Sword in action! The sword is capable of a dash-charge attack and has armor piercing capability, while the shield can reflect incoming projectiles and bullets, and can completely stop splash damage! ARK Live Original Soundtrack! We are also very excited to announce that the pre-order for the live soundtrack recorded live at Abbey Road is now available! Watch the behind-the-scenes teaser video below. Composed by Gareth Coker, the official soundtrack album will be released August 29th via digital and streaming outlets worldwide through Sumthing Else Music Works. The soundtrack is also included in the Collectors Edition of ARK. You can pre-order the soundtrack right now! https://www.sumthing.com/p/ark/ View full article

Yes it does!

As we have previously mentioned in July, today marks the beginning of the process of removing our lower population ARK servers on PC, Xbox, and PS4. Here is a quick breakdown on how this process will work. Taking Down Low Pop Servers These lower population servers make up about 33% of the existing online servers, with calculations based on sustained player-count as well as popularity of game mode. These servers will be taken offline and be re-purposed for new, fresh servers that will be put up on launch day. Any existing server that is not considered a low pop server and is not taken down will become a Legacy server. Legacy servers will remain on a separate cluster from the new cluster, which means you will not be able to transfer anything between Legacy servers and the new servers. Servers Up for Deletion Below is a complete list of the servers that will be deleted come August 29th. You have from now until 12:00am EST on the 29th to move your belongings onto a server not present on this list. Please click one of the links below. They are separated by platform (PC, Xbox, and PS4). How To Move Servers If you are unfamiliar with the process, you are able to upload your items, creatures, and player through the Obelisk terminal, supply drops, as well as the Tek Transmitter. Survivors are advised to use Cross-ARK immediately to relocate their belongings onto a server that is not included in our take-down list above. Server-wide Blackout Our Official Server Network will be taken down at 12:00AM ET on August 29th and will remain down for approximately 8 hours, with our official servers coming back online at 8am ET. During this time we will be going through the process of removing all servers outlined in this post and re-purposing them into a new cluster, completely separate from all Legacy servers. The Legacy servers and all the new servers will come back online after that time. Important Customer Support Legacy Information When the current servers become Legacy servers on the 29th, we will no longer offer Customer Support to these Legacy servers. All outstanding tickets to our Customer Support team will be wiped clean on launch day, and no future tickets submitted by those playing on Legacy servers will be accepted. Going forward our Customer Support team will be focused on assisting those present on the new cluster, which will not be plagued by many of the issues that occurred during the Early Access process. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of our operation to continue to offer support on Legacy servers at this time. Do note that this is for Customer Support only, which is the process of submitting a ticket through our support system. Legacy clusters for PS4 and for Xbox will still be receiving Ragnarok servers. Legacy servers will also receive all of the same fixes and content that the new cluster will. Allocation of New Servers We know you are all very curious about this, but we don’t have this information ready to share quite yet. What I can tell you is that we plan to continue to support all current existing game modes in some capacity, so you won’t lose access to your favourite way to play the game. In the beginning we will be mainly focusing our efforts on strictly PVP and PVE servers on all maps, but will allocate servers to the other game modes based on their popularity. Server Saves of Deleted Servers We will make the save files available as soon as we can, which will likely be sometime before Saturday. We will host these files which anyone can download and then you are welcome to re-host the save file for your own use. We'll include a link to where you can download server saves in this post when they are available. To those affected by the move, we apologize greatly. This moving process will not be easy, but it is a necessary step towards our official launch. We have learned a lot throughout our Early Access adventures. Throughout our ups and downs, you’ve stood by our side and continued to support us during our growing pains and mess ups which is why we wanted our players to have the ability to keep as much progress as they can while still moving forward with a plan that will improve the game overall. We are committed to monitoring the health of this new cluster with our new ddos mitigation and changes to the transfer system (both of which will also be present on the Legacy servers), which will no doubt improve the official online playing environment. We look forward to fostering a fair and fun community with the beginning of our brand new ARK cluster on launch day. We very much appreciate your support of ARK through its Early Access process. Xbox UWP, Rentable Servers, Crossbuy, & Crossplay! While I have you here, I have some Xbox news to share as well! Originally our plan was to go out with Play Anywhere on our launch day but unfortunately that has now been pushed back until mid-September. However I do have some exciting news to share: with the use of Xbox and Windows 10 PC Crossplay (UWP) you can host your own server without needing an extra copy of the game or a second console to do it! (Though it is important to note that you will still be able to host a Player Dedicated server this way.) If you own ARK digitally on Xbox, you get the Windows 10 PC version as well as the Xbox One X version for free and you can play with all your Xbox friends from your PC or either console. In addition, we'll be introducing rentable servers for our Xbox Survivors at that time! We'll be sure to let you all know when these additions are ready to go out to Xbox users. Our release date is rapidly approaching and we're very excited for what is about to come. We hope you are too! All the best, Studio Wildcard View full article

Hey Survivors! Welcome to the latest edition of the Community Crunch! The Community Crunch is where we share important things going on with ARK, as well as host contests and showcase creations made by the community! Let's get started with some news. Introducing the Phoenix! A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, this one is everyone’s flaming fire flyer, the Phoenix! Common name: Phoenix Species: Unknown Time: Unknown Diet: Flame Eater Temperament: Elusive Wild Among the most mysterious of all flying creatures, much of what is known about the Phoenix exists in legends which have been told through generations. These myths have often changed through the passing of time, but one constant is the belief that fire represents cleansing and renewal. The Phoenix embodies this process through its everlasting cycle of death and renewal. Extreme heat-waves in the desert seem to initiate the rise of the Phoenix, while the end of this so-called "Super Heat" precipitates the creature's reversion into ashes. While the Phoenix seems ambivalent to most wildlife, if provoked, its ferocity is evident in its ability to set targets aflame with a single bite. Domesticated Attempting to pacify a Phoenix is, quite literally, playing with fire. The Phoenix must be continually set ablaze in order to be tamed. I've seen many turned into dust and ash in the attempt. After it has been pacified, the Phoenix will regain its vitality when it is aflame! Although its compact size prevents the Phoenix from being ridden, its aggressive enflaming has proved to be invaluable in battle. Plus, it can quickly roast up tasty cooked meat and refine raw ores at any time, as a living furnace! ARK Digest 48! Here is our question and answer session with Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Co-Creative Director of ARK: Survival Evolved, and Co-Founder of Studio Wildcard: Jeremy "Drake" Stieglitz! Survivor Monics asks, “When it comes to game performance in general... The game has come a long way I believe, optimization wise... But still, is missing quite a bit. What are your plans moving forward regarding these specifics?” Survivor DangerPlayz asks, “Hey Jeremy! I play a lot of singleplayer and am very happy with the changes you have made recently! However, can we please get an option to remove the engram points system and unlock all engrams at a certain level, when we reach said level. Thanks!” Survivor Caseybear asks “Will the small CrossArk cluster servers be gaining access to Ragnarok and other future content? If so, any idea when?” Survivor IGNWhyt asks, “Will you please address the issue where the game takes up 100+GB? Is this intended? Are there any plans on reducing the size?” Survivor RaifuForLaifu, asks “Can we get a damage reduction on The Dragon's fire breath pretty please with extra sprinkles on top? 25% feels a tad ridiculous. Thank you” Survivor Blackwolfe asks, “You earlier mentioned that you were reworking the kibble tree. Will this also affect the kibbles asked for when imprinting dinos? Beacuse kibble for imprinting I think is a large part of why people feel forced to have a lot of dinos (together with the kibbles needed for taming).” Survivor GamerPerfection asks, “Can you make the Tribe Logs record your Tames/Turrets kills? I find it frustrating not knowing what they've actually killed when i'm not around.” Survivor Mendoza asks, “Can we get Sun Glasses added to the game to help reduce glare?” Survivor iAmE asks, “Do you plan on hiring any additional support staff? I would figure any number would be nice, as you would seem to be going up from what appears to be zero (4-6 Month ticket turn arounds hurt this game an immense amount.” Survivor Touhma asks, “As A server Admin I want an option that can allow me to have a full customisation on Taming time / ressources Any chances to have this options : * TamedDinoCharacterFoodDrainMultiplier -> To avoid the consumption of ressource after taming ( when foodDrain is up ) * WildDinoCharacterFoodDrainMultiplier -> To tweak the speed of taming whitout affect the tamed dinos ( when foodDrain is up and avoiding the effect on tamed dinos ) * WildDinoTorporDrainMultiplier -> To have a use of narcotics ( because of TamingEfficiency make narcotics almost useless en taming time is less than offi ) * PassiveTameIntervalMultiplier -> To adjust the interval between 2 feeding tentative for passive tame dinos ( because if the foorDrainMultiplier is greater than 2 the dino is dying when trying to tame it ) Why I want these changes: Survivor CottonCandy asks, “1) Is there any chance we'll see an option to enable NVIDIA Ansel on servers that don't care about people using it to cheat, etc?” Survivor PaladinKong asks, “Will those who have the game now in early access be able to get the physical items that come with the collectors edition, like the dossier book, without having to buy another copy of the game?” Survivor johnm81 asks, “Prim+ players have been told that load times for pc version can't be addressed till after alpha. Now that alpha is over what are the plans to lower the 5-15min load times for this total conversion?” Survivor legendaryc4 asks, “can console players get the option to hold back the left stick to slow flyers down? Very big here for me as building high up can be a pain.” Survivor Lowly asks, “Can we get some sort of flame retardant suite, firefighter suite, racing driver type flame retardant suite, to fit into the modern technology side of scorched earth” Survivor Dustiest-Ninja asks, “On a scale of 1-Incredible Hulk how much did dealing with the PhysX Engine for the tek ATV-jeeps make you rage?” Survivor Syntac asks, “Will you guys ever implement the Hive, the creature in the dev kit that looks like a giant beetle?” Survivor Gelantious asks, “Any news related to Vulkan? Still having hopes you guys will move over to it and ditch the idea of dx12, since it would help Linux users as well and all windows users, not just the windows 10 players.” Survivor tolle79 asks” lets be serious the question of all quetions is why doesnt the doedicurus gather berries? Like how does it survive in the wild?” Survivor LordMaxilos asks, “TEK: Is there any chance that some sort of TEK Bow will be introduced to the game? As well as a TEK Arrow who will split up into three when you shoot it or something?” Survivor Redstorm8616 asks, “Growable Cactus Sap?” Survivor mleii asks, “Can we get some videos showing what the Xbox One X will look like in game?” The Great Migration! We have some very important news for Survivors playing on our official servers. This coming Tuesday (August 22nd) we will be posting the list of servers that will be taken down on our launch day and re-purposed for the new servers, while all other existing servers become Legacy servers. For those who decide not to migrate, the saves for these servers will be uploaded and provided, which you can then download and use to host your own unofficial servers with all of your stuff intact. Closer to release date we will also be communicating how these servers will be allocated, so you can prepare to take over a new server! ARK: 3x Evolution Event Weekend! Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event+++ perk this weekend! It's already live now and will remain active until Monday the 21st at 12PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes: 3x Harvesting Rate 3x Taming Rate 3x EXP Rate 3x Maturing 3x Hatching 3x Gestation 3x Faster Mating Interval Rates Reminder: this 2x bonus is on top of the 2x rates that are now standard on our official servers! Community Contests! Player Procedurally Generated Maps! The Procedurally Generated Map system allows players to make their own ARK maps by determining a myriad of landscape options from the heights of mountains, depths of valleys, and the number of lakes, rivers or oceans, to the kinds of each biome they want, and more! Let's check out the entries for this weeks contest! This week's contest winner is... F1r3fly with their map Hinsawdd! PGMapName=Hinsawdd PGTerrainPropertiesString=MapSeed=71;LandscapeRadius=1.0;Water Frequency=5.5;Mountains Frequency=9.8;Mountains Slope=1.5;MountainsHeight=0.95;Turbulence Power=0.0125;Shore Slope=1.0;WaterLevel=-0.72;GrassDensity=1.0;JungleGrassDensity=0.02;ErosionSteps=10;TreesGroundSlopeAccuracy=0.5;DepositionStrength=0.025;ErosionStrength=1;OceanFloorLevel=-1.0;SnowBiomeSize=0.493963;RWBiomeSize=0.25019;MountainBiomeStart=-0.57;MountainsTreeDensity=0.01;JungleBiomeStart=-0.68;IslandBorderCurveExp=4.0;MaxSawnPointHeight=0.1;SnowGrassDensity=0.25;MountainGrassDensity=0.25;SnowMountainGrassDensity=0.15;UnderwaterObjectsDensity=0.6;SnowMountainsTreeDensity=0.01;TreeDensity=0.04;JungleTreeDensity=0.66;RedWoodTreeDensity=0.35;SnowTreeDensity=1.0;RedwoodGrassDensity=0.15;ShoreTreeDensity=0.05;SnowShoreTreeDensity=0.025;DeepWaterBiomesDepth=-0.24;InlandWaterObjectsDensity=0.5;ShorelineStartOffset=0.01;ShorelineThickness=0.002;MountainGeneralTreesPercent=0.5;TerrainScaleMultiplier=(X=1.0f,Y=1.0f,Z=1.0f);SnowBiomeLocation=(X=0.2f,Y=0.2f);RWForestBiomeLocation=(X=0.5f,Y=0.5f);NorthRegion1Start=(X=0.25f,Y=0.0f);NorthRegion1End=(X=0.416f,Y=0.5f);NorthRegion2Start=(X=0.416f,Y=0.0f);NorthRegion2End=(X=0.582f,Y=0.5f);NorthRegion3Start=(X=0.582f,Y=0.0f);NorthRegion3End=(X=0.75f,Y=0.0f);SouthRegion1Start=(X=0.25f,Y=0.5f);SouthRegion1End=(X=0.416f,Y=1.0f);SouthRegion2Start=(X=0.416f,Y=0.5f);SouthRegion2End=(X=0.582f,Y=1.0f);SouthRegion3Start=(X=0.582f,Y=0.5f);SouthRegion3End=(X=0.75f,Y=1.0f);EastRegion1Start=(X=0.75f,Y=0.0f);EastRegion1End=(X=1.0f,Y=0.333f);EastRegion2Start=(X=0.75f,Y=0.333f);EastRegion2End=(X=1.0f,Y=0.666f);EastRegion3Start=(X=0.75f,Y=0.666f);EastRegion3End=(X=1.0f,Y=1.0f);WestRegion1Start=(X=0.0f,Y=0.0f);WestRegion1End=(X=0.25f,Y=0.333f);WestRegion2Start=(X=0.0f,Y=0.333f);WestRegion2End=(X=0.25f,Y=0.666f);WestRegion3Start=(X=0.0f,Y=0.666f);WestRegion3End=(X=0.25f,Y=1.0f) If you'd like to learn more about PGMs, please check out our quick start guide: NVidia Ansel Photography Contest Super Resolution Version: http://images.nvidia.com/ansel/SuperResolution/ARK-SuperResolution1/ARK__Survival_Evolved_HighRes_2016_09_01_-_14_38_36_55.html ARK: Survival Evolved and the Scorched Earth Expansion Pack now include support for NVIDIA Ansel -- a revolutionary new way to capture in-game shots. Compose shots from any position, adjust with post-process filters, capture HDR images in high-fidelity formats, and share the screenshots in 360 via a smartphone, PC or VR headset. Learn more about these features from the NVIDIA blog. Now let’s get to the contest! There were 3 potential categories for survivors to enter their shots into and they were the following: Three Categories Super Resolution: These should be taken at 8x Super Resolution. Players can optionally use Depth of Field effects accessible in Spectator mode by pressing the [Delete] key. Panoramic 360 Stereoscopic 3D: These should be taken at 4x Super Resolution, in 360 Stereoscopic 3D mode. We will crop them to 2D for web display, while also providing the 3D version for viewing within VR display. Freeform: Any settings, whacky and creative use of Ansel filters are encouraged. Adding humorous titles/captions in Photoshop is also acceptable for this category! And now without further ado, here are your entries! You’ll want to click on the image title to be able to download the maximum size image, we’ve resized them for display purposes Super Resolution! Winner! The Body Farmer - Giga on the Great Plains Honourable Mentions! EXFIB0 - Ragnarok EXFIB0 - Wyvern Scar F1r3fly - Sunset Solitude Kovko - Bug Attack Kovko - Catch me Kovko - Waterfall Pollti – Giga on fire Pollti – She is so funny Valoule - RagnaRock Wolf Angelus - Dawn in Japan Wolf Angelus - House Rangetsu Wolf Angelus - Scenic Japan Panoramic 360 Stereoscopic 3D! Winner! Kovko - High Honourable Mentions! EXFIB0 - Generated EXFIB0 - Snow Valley Kovko - Bloody Shore Kovko - Deserted Island Kovko - Rainy Wolf Angelus - House Rangetsu Courtyard Wolf Angelus - House Rangetsu Entrance Freeform! Winner! BatmanTDKR - Little Dragon Runners Up! Valoule - postcARK from Ragnarok Wolf Angelus - (Postcard) Greetings from Hanamura Honourable Mentions! Cheb - Atlantis of the Sands Cheb - Drake's Fortune Cheb - Gate to Shambala Cheb - Libertalia EXFIB0 - Burning EXFIB0 - Flight EXFIB0 - Light F1r3fly - Winter's Breath ARKVideo! This contest is open to all types of video be they funny, epic, scenic, stories, whatever inspires you. Just a general reminder that they should remain safe for work, think of the children! And without further ado, the ARKVideo for Community Crunch 101 is... The Airship Has Arrived - Steampunk Mod v(1.8) by LameWolfProductions 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 101 is… The City Challenge, Vanilla+ Base Tour by Flydive! We also want to announce two amazing runner ups... House Rangetsu - Inspired by Castle Himeji by Wolf Angelus! and... GoT: BUILDING THE SEVEN KINGDOMS Ragnarok | EP1 Pyke Castle | Ark Survival [ NO MODS ] by badassunicorn! If you'd like to check out the submissions from the rest of the entrants, you can do so here: Fan Feature! Polymer Clay Microraptor by by Naila https://www.facebook.com/Polymer-Clay-art-by-Naila-458565734212216/ When you finally reach Endgame in ARK: Survival Evolved - Lame Game Skits by LameWolfProductions THE BABY BOOMER by ranger1presents! ALL DINO BATTLE (to date) || EPIC ARENA BATTLE by Squidge Meister Fishy by GeeKy gAMer no.1 & gOOgly Owl Star City by Dragonarcwar Massive Castle/ Fortress Build on Scorched Earth Ark Survival Evolved by Travis138 MY HOUSE by 林小欣 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1111486558 Alangsauras by Mglogo http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1113411338 Realistic Dinosaurs size update by DinoPlayer34 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1110030818 Tyrannosaurus Rex Lip Function by DinoPlayer34 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1111849998 Andrewsarchus by milokamilo http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1110733723 Tanystropheus by Scanova the Carnotaurus http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1108880618 Dossier: Elasmotherium by Scanova the Carnotaurus http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1108719461 Dossier: Tyrannotitan by Scanova the Carnotaurus http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1112869623 Dossier: Giganotosaurus by Scanova the Carnotaurus http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1111936262 Dossier: Woolly Mammoth by Scanova the Carnotaurus http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1110447510 Additional Creatures Official Dossier: Walrus by Shadlos http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1110889823 That's it for this post guys! As always if you’ve got anything to share please get in touch and be sure to follow us on: Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark All the best, Studio Wildcard View full article