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.

Mysterious Mysteries: Introducing ???????

What an intriguing discovery survivors, can you guess what creature it is?

ARK at TwitchCon!

Wildcard and ARK will have a booth at this years TwitchCon in Long Beach, California. If you're in the area and will be attending the con, we encourage you to stop by and say hi at Booth #722 on October 20th to 22th. The community team (Jat, Jen, and Cedric) as well as two of the Ragnarok developers will be present, the ARK Raptor will be there for photos, and there will also be some additional surprises!

Xbox One X Support!

With the upcoming Xbox patch on October 25th we're excited to finally talk about the enhancements coming to the Xbox One X version of ARK: Survival Evolved.

ARK on the Xbox One X will feature HDR and two graphics modes. The first is a Detailed Graphics version with 1440p resolution and Truesky (which is the equivalent to High quality on the PC) at 30fps. The second is a 1080p mode which equates to the current Xbox One graphics, with improved 60fps. The Xbox One X has increased RAM, 60-70% more RAM compared to the Xbox One, which will help to eliminate out of memory issues. It also means faster loading times and better streaming due to a faster hard-drive and the ability to cache data into RAM (coming November 7th) that will allow faster and better access to repeat files. The Xbox One X will eliminate the host tether in local splitscreen mode and will increase the tether range in non-dedicated mode. Unfortunately we were unable to remove the tether completely due to CPU limitations, but we hope that players will benefit from the increased range.

As mentioned in our past Crunch, Xbox Play Anywhere and CrossPlay are still currently delayed until November. The reason behind this is because we believe it is critical to get BattlEye functioning on Microsoft's platform. We're very interested in the effects of CrossPlay, but we're cautious of enabling PC and Xbox Players to game together without having our anti-cheat ready, so it's going to take a little longer to get that sorted, but it will ensure a much better experience overall.

Rentable servers will also be available on Xbox starting on October 25th, supplied by Nitrado. Survivors who are interested in purchasing their own rentable server(s) are strongly encouraged to read the following article on the Nitrado website for further information on pricing and pre-orders:

https://server.nitrado.net/eng/news2/view/ark-survival-evolved-servers-xbox-one

ARK: 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 16th at 12 PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rate

2x Taming Rate

2x EXP Rate

ARK Digest 51!

Here is our special Aberration edition 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 Acearoni asks, "Does the premise for "Ark" come from an original idea or was it ever influenced by pop culture i.e Transformers Beast Wars? When first playing the game I instantly got that feel of Beast Wars with the futuristic skins mixed with dinosaurs."

Quote In addition to a naturalist/scientific interest in biology and extinct creatures that many on the dev team share, we’ve taken influence from a huge variety of pop cultural sources, including a little bit of Beast Wars, a lot of Dinotopia and Dino Riders Oh, and a small indie movie from the 90’s that you might have heard of called “Jurassic Park”.

Survivor H2OW asks, "Is there going to be another Aberration trailer as it gets closer or just the one?"

Quote There will be, both an in-engine trailer, and also a sequel to the Live Action ARK “movie” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U8Hbs0f0Ek ).

Survivor CaseyMcLovin asks, "Will we see Tek armor for Ptero, Quetzal or any other Dino’s?"

Quote You will indeed, more Tek Armors for our favorite Dinos are coming, and some of them will do different things, not just Plasma Blasters. I’m lookin’ at you, Wyvern!

Survivor R0CKB0770M asks, "If you could tease the map that releases in spring using one word, what would it be?"

Quote Epic Closure. Darn, that’s two words!

Survivor MysticBloodWolf asks, "Will there be improved mod support for better mod loading times?"

Quote We’re looking into giving Total Conversions a “Seekfree Cooking” option which will yield extremely fast load times, at the cost of larger file sizes for such TC’s.

Survivor RaifuForLaifu asks, "What can we expect for the near future in terms of engram additions to ARK? New primitive tools? Industrial weapons? TEK Tier gadgets?"

Quote There are upcoming Engrams for ALL tiers, primitive, modern, and Tek. As a hint, primitive tier is getting “Pliers” for repairing various metal items on the go, and a new method to catch and tame fish, Modern tier is getting “batteries” to power various electrical structures & items on the go, etc.

Survivor Aligator asks, "Some games have an automatic item transport system (like conveyor belts, transport drones, hoppers etc.). Any chance we are going to see something like this in ARK?"

Quote Yes, though it’s goint to be at the Tek Tier.

Survivor Blackwolfe asks, "Are there any plans on improving the mutation system? There are several issues that I've noticed that I would wish fixed. First of all, color mutations can end up on color regions that do not exist on a specific dino. This is especially apparent on Basilos, which only have two color regions so most of the time color mutations end up on non-existant regions. Secondly mutations can end up on speed, which means the mutation is completely wasted since speed mutations do nothing except inflate the level. Third, even if two dinos with the exact same color and stat mutations are bred, the mutation count will increase despite there not being any new mutations."

Quote Will fix the mutations being applied to inactive regions, and the mutations being wasted on speed! (The third point, I don’t consider an issue

Survivor Mehlstaub asks, "Can we please get the blanket from the parasaur founder saddle skin in the merch store?"

Quote Will ask those folks to try to make that happen!

Survivor spoop asks, "Will there be a hitbox revamp in the future? Some creatures like dimorphs eat your arrows that never register."

Quote Yes, it’s due for some tweaking in the Dino TLC pass.

Survivor spoop asks, "Any plan to look back on some item costs? Stuff like the lance realistically should not require more metal than the industrial grill."

Quote Yes, we’ll be doing a rebalance & clean-up pass, after Aberration’s release, along with the Dino TLC pass.

Survivor Lowly asks, "Can we please have a metal tier blueprint holder/archival vault, the bookcases are very weak in a PvP setting compared to a Metal vault."

Quote Yep, we’ll do it.

Survivor Lowly asks, "What happened to the Survivor's Hat Skin? Customer support doesn't know, we had it on Xbox for completing out explorer profile in early access, then the survivor profiles where wiped and now we cant even admin spawn the hat in our single player, yet it was listed as a pre order bonus by xbox's own Larry hyrb aka major Nelson and pcgamer among other news."

Quote It got wiped-out during the consolidation of assets as we unified to the builds to ship. Thank you for bringing it up here, it shall be re-added in November update!

Survivor Exstinkt asks, "Will you ever add ark themed steam backgrounds to spice up our profiles?"

Quote We will make it so.

Survivor gaiainruin asks, "Would you consider making classic fliers an option you could check for player dedicated and single player servers?"

Quote We’ll be making all the relevant values INI-and-Host-UI editable during the Dino TLC pass, so you will be able to make the Fliers handle whatever you’d like.

Survivor BriskUhhhhh asks, "Are the smaller aberration dinos such as the frog butterfly and the Cthulhu wyveren able to sit on your shoulder? If so, will they have unique uses such as the jerboa?"

Quote Some of them do indeed, and those that do, have a very special and important capability.

Survivor Hazelnut20 asks, "Is the re-worked kibble tree system still being implemented?"

Quote Yes, we plan to roll it for testing and feedback on a new “Experimental” branch during the Dino TLC pass.

Survivor Lonestar45 asks, "Will we see any type of balancing in play for animals without saddles? I really would like to see servers full of diversity rather than Rexes, Stegos, Spinos, Gigas, and Brontos. There's a plethora of animals but some like the Direwolves could use protection. I'm not asking saddles but armor, they also can't be ridden while wearing it so I can use them as a pack hunt. Give us more strategy enabling devices. Also LOVE the community outreach. I wish more devs did so."

Quote That’s a good and reasonable idea, for such dinos without saddles to have armor. Will look into how much asset work it’d take for the most important creatures.

Survivor RowletAlex asks, "How are artifacts gonna work in aberration, since it's all a huge cave? Will we get smaller side tunnels, or will they be from element chambers, or something else entirely?"

Quote There are “dungeon-like” themed caves within the overall Aberration cave networks. Also, Aberration’s not completely caves, there is a surface too!

Survivor Grave asks, "Question for Aberration: Will there be rain on the new map?"

Quote Not rain, as Aberration’s atmosphere is weak, but there are other kinds of new weather events on that ARK!

Community Contests!

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!

Norlinri - Phoenix

Runners up!

Vakarian - On the back of the beast

Wolf Angelus - Swamp Village

Honourable Mentions!

Wolf Angelus - Night of Sorrow

Vakarian - The beast is hungry

The Body Farmer - Dusk In Scotland

Wolf Angelus - Burning in the Night

Vakarian - Sunset Ragnarok

Vakarian - Flight into the sunset

Vakarian - Alone in the Desert

Norlinri - The Island

Norlinri - The Center arena

Norlinri - Sneak attack

Norlinri - Scorched Earth

Norlinri - Ruins

Norlinri - River

Norlinri - Ragnarok

Norlinri - Note

HyunHwang - You Can't Hide From me

HyunHwang - The King of Sky

HyunHwang - Pawwww

HyunHwang - Master Turtle

Ego - Phoenix

Ego - Do you want to fly

BatmanTDKR - The Mountain

Panoramic 360 Stereoscopic 3D!

Winner!

Vakarian - The Dragon King

Honourable Mentions!

Vakarian - Dragon ready to take off

Vakarian - Fire in the dunes

Vakarian - Journey to the Center of the Earth

Vakarian - New Ragnarok Dessert Biome

Wolf Angelus - Crimson Sonata of the Night

Wolf Angelus - Swamp Village (Day)

Wolf Angelus - Swamp Village (Night)

Freeform!

Winner!

Wolf Angelus - THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

Honourable Mentions!

F1r3fly - Sky Thieves

Ego - Kung Fu Vulture

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 107 is...

ARK: ALLOSAURUS CINEMATIC DOSSIER | #004 by ShipWrekt

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 107 is…

Castle Build by Sitharias!

and...

Ark Survival The Waterfall Chateau by Kassyo!

If you'd like to check out the submissions from the rest of the entrants, you can do so here:

Fan Feature!

THE ROBOT ARKRENA by Valoule

LACKLUSTER HAUNTING! - ARK Skits by LameWolfProductions

Witches Coven in the Forgotten Swamp by Wolf Angelus

ARK Cliffside Goods Store - Part 1 :: ARK Building Evolved :: Cool ARK Building Design on The Center by SWChris

ARK Cliffside Goods Store - Part 2 :: ARK Building Evolved :: Cool ARK Building Design on The Center by SWChris

Ragnarok DireFamily medieval projet by kirikou

DragonPort by Dragonarcwar

Ice Wyvern Egg Hunting & Baby Raising [Monkey Tribe Patron Server] [12] by MonkeyManTV

Ark: Survival Evolved - PvE S1 E14 - Airspace Hatchery by Lemur

Ark Survival Evolved - Lava Pool (PART 61) by gOOglyOwl

Tageon explains the Achatina

Wyvern by ???



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1166577435

Feathered Raptor by Shockal



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1163232255

ARK by fruit



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1166420037

Forest Camo Otter by Sharkcat



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1160344322

Emmit Otterton Otter by Sharkcat



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1160422696

Fish Market Stalls by eco



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1165863432

Torvosaurus by milokamilo



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1166279605

Jurassic World Game's Dodo Boss by milokamilo



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1162709569

Dossier: Dunkleosteus by Scanova the Carnotaurus



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1166887127

Pyria: Mythos Evolved Official Dossier: Goliath! by Shadlos



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1161073454

Dossier: Leaellynasaura by Scanova the Carnotaurus



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1165977980

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