Hey Survivors! Welcome to the latest edition of the Community Crunch and ARK Digest (coming soon)!

For those of you who've missed the earlier announcements this week, let's have a quick catch-up as we shared some very important news!

Announcing ARK Park VR!

We've partnered up with Snail Games to bring you a totally new ARK VR experience -- Snail’s Peacock Studio is developing, while Studio Wildcard is providing creative consultation. ARK stalwarts will have their skill and cunning in taming primeval creatures rewarded in this new game, as they can import their own collected dinosaurs from the original survival game into an up-close and personal, full VR experience!

Players begin their ARK Park adventure at a visitor center surrounded by life-sized holographic dinosaurs where they'll learn about these creatures that they’ve only read about & seen in books and summer blockbusters. From there, players will have the option to explore multiple interactive attractions on-foot or in vehicles & on Dino-back, including a swamp, forest, desert, snowy mountain range, and more. Each attraction features stunningly rendered and realistic environments of the period inhabited by ARK creatures, which can be found and captured through use of items, weapons, and puzzle-solving.

More gameplay details on ARK Park are available on Sony’s PlayStation Blog, here:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/12/15/ark-park-coming-to-playstation-vr-in-2017-interacts-with-ark-survival-evolved/

ARK Park will be available on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation™VR in 2017. You can also sign-up for updates about ARK Park at www.arkparkvr.com!

You can check out more screenshots on our initial announcement page:

ARK Digest 45

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, FlyinJapman4 asks, “Can you update more of the item spawn commands so more of them have item ID numbers? Like the Kibbles, Saddles, and Tranq Darts?”

Quote While it’s tedious to do it during development, before we ship we plan to add ALL of the items to the master item list.

Survivor, MrRetrospective asks, “I was wondering if there was a way you could make a form of shock collar system for dinos to stop people from kiting dinos away from a base. Essentially any unauthorized movement by the dino would only go a certain distance from a placed wireless transmitter structure that sends out a circle from its location encasing dinos from being kited. Like on neutral a Dino will attack things but it won't leave the specified zone unless ridden or set to follow. Thanks!”

Quote Yes, we will be adding a dino-leashing/post system!

Survivor, Deepz asks, “Can Xbox get a My Survivors Tab to find characters?”

Quote Yes, Xbox and PS4 will be getting that.

Survivor, Avios asks, “Could there be a small chance that wild dinos will drop Fertilized eggs? (With improved stats similar to post-tamed dinos of that level, anyways.)”

Quote We’re currently debating it. While it sounds intriguing and is easy enough to do, it could undermine the regular taming process. It’s easy for a mod to experiment with dropping fertilized eggs, so I’d encourage a mod author to try it out and we’ll see what the popularity appears to be!

Survivor, The8ball0 asks, “I was wondering if you would be able to have a random size generator for all creatures of ark not just the fish. I feel it would make them more individual. Obviously it wouldn't go too extreme though u wouldn't get trex sized dodos but maybe a couple of dilo size?”

Quote We plan ultimately to do so for all non-rideable and non-mounting creatures. The reason we can’t easily do so for ride-able/mounting creatures is the saddles and sockets would not scale well otherwise.

Survivor, Grounded On asks, “a serious note can we get some form of mod loading progress bar on the PC client? To many people think the game has crashed because it just says "Loading mods" and then is unresponsive for several minutes while it loads them.”

Quote Yes indeed, we’ll get a progress bar implemented for that very soon.

Survivor, Shrekasaurus asks, “What sort of criteria do you go through when deciding what creatures to add? I'm very curious on this.”

Quote Three overall criteria: What types/classes of Dinos/creatures are we currently deficient in?

What unique abilities could the creature bring to the ARK that contribute meaningfully to the gameplay?

What will be visually compelling and distinct-looking?

And, aha, there is a fourth criteria: What are the players telling us they want? 1

Survivor, Jmarr307 asks, “Is it possible to add a motion activated gate (maybe a tek gate) which allows dinosaurs and their riders to pass through gates without having to close them behind you? Like a tag you put on your mount like the tracker bug which allows any dino with it to pass through with ease?”

Quote Tek Tier will have this!

Survivor, Tatsu86 asks, “Can Xbox & PS4 users get options to reduce the 3 hour time between imprinting baby dinos on Private / Non-Dedicated & single-player servers? It's difficult in a single-player experience to keep a server open for 3 hours at a time just to breed. Appreciate it, thanks.”

Quote Yes all PC server options will be exposed to console, we’re just waiting to get a little closer to shipping to redesign the UI one last time for all the remaining and forthcoming options.

Survivor, Vscotty1 asks, “What did you all enjoy the most about developing ARK?”

Quote Seeing players interact with the game in unexpected ways to tell their OWN stories and adventures!

Survivor, Vscotty1 also asks, “If you could have any celebrity advertise ARK who would it be?”

Quote John Hammond, and he would spare NO expense! 1

Survivor, ENERV8 asks, “When a weapon/tool breaks and we have multiples in our inventory could another be auto equipped?”

Quote I’ll be considering it, but the problem is, you might not ALWAYS want that behavior, so it could become annoying unless some more control is provided.

Survivor, Rogueblade1658 asks, “will there be caves and obelisks added to PG maps”

Quote Obelisks yes. Caves are being worked-on but are challenging so it’s taking some extra time. 1

Survivor, Silver116 asks, “Will cross-platform happen? I've had this game since it's release into Early Access on Steam, but my friend can't afford a gaming PC and has bought the PS4 copy. It would be awesome if we could play together via cross-platform (me on the PC version and him on the PS4 version)”

Quote We intend to have this soon, and we are currently working on it. We expect to have announcements in January.

Survivor, Ul1sses asks, “I want to know if the blocking of drops and obelisks is something that will continue to be part of PvP game. How can i use the transfer mechanic if someone blocked all the exits?”

Quote Tek Tier will have a portable transmitter.

Survivor, Monsters asks, “In a coming update can you make that you can decide what side you hop off on small to medium dino's? ( like how you can decide which side the bronto swings it's tail by using the camera)”

Quote Yep, we’ll go ahead and make holding A or D when you exit the dino override the drop-off side.

Survivor, Bacon8RColby asks, “Are there plans for additional story telling mediums aside from the explorer notes? Cinematics and things like that?”

Quote A few special “scripted” sequences, as well as more environmental storytelling.

Survivor, Xmrmeow asks, “Would you ever consider playing with verticality more in the island or any other maps you plan on releasing to give them more room in the same volume? (E.g. floating islands, underground rivers, inner volcano lava rivers that connect volcanos, caves that present a safer(or maybe more treacherous, but more rewarding) shortcut from point A to point B)”

Quote Yes!

Survivor, Legendaryc4 asks, “Could you add an option so it automatically sets every dino and structure rank to a set rank so I literally don't have to spend 4 hours walking around my base manually setting every structures access rank, inventory rank, whistle, and riding ranks?”

Quote We’ll have a button to bulk-set, increment, or decrement all Ranks of Structures and/or Tribes within a radius. Also, on a somewhat different subject, we are going to add a method to dynamically expand or contract the Whistle ordering range

Evolution Event: Permanent Double Rates

The ARK harvesting, EXP, and taming rates will be transitioning to 2x permanently!

This is a decision we’ve made after experimenting with the game’s rates for quite some time. You may have noticed in the last few weeks the Evolution Events have gotten longer, this has allowed us to get a better feel for how it would play out in a permanent live experience. We have consistently received a lot of feedback from you, and it was very evident that players preferred the increased rates. Thusly, the rates will stay at 2x permanently from now onwards on our Official Servers. As for upcoming Evolution Events, we've decided that we're going to keep the server rates as 2x for anaylsis to help us determine what values further Evolution Events should have.

Furthermore, in the next major version releases, the 2x rates will be implemented directly in the game build itself. This means that Non-Dedicated Servers, Single Player Sessions and of course Unofficial Servers will also feel the increased rates. Therefore, if you’re currently using customized rates, it’s something you will want to keep in mind before this change is in place -- specifically upon the release of the next Major Version on each of your respective platforms, you may wish to reduce your server/game rates by 50% to have the same effective values as before.

We appreciate all the response you guys have provided to us regarding our Evolution Events and are looking forward to running more exploring new features with you in the upcoming future.

ARK: Survival of the Fittest All Stars & Naugty and Nice!

The ARK: Survival of the Fittest All Stars plus Naughty & Nice matches will take place from 11 am EST to 3 pm EST tomorrow, Saturday the 17th December 2016!

The final games will be shout-casted by typeForced! We invite all ARK fans to come watch the epic battles at that time on our Twitch channel:

https://www.twitch.tv/survivetheark

To those competing: may fortune smile upon you, brave Survivors!

Patch 253: Underwater Caves!

As we approach the 21st of December and the release of Patch 253. We'd like to remind players that this update will involve a visual update for the current Underwater Caves, as well as introduce 2 New Full-Scale Underwater Caves. Once this patch is released, all Underwater Caves on the Island will have their structures and Dinos removed, therefore it is in the players best interest to ferry them away whilst they can!

UI Discussion: Dino Inventory & Overlay, Engram Page, Player HUD, and Multi Wheel!

We received a lot of feedback regarding our previous discussion on Player's Inventory screen. We're now looking to collect feedback and suggestions from the community regarding the; Dino Inventory & Overlay, Engram Page, Player HUD, and Multi Wheel. If you'd like to provide us some feedback, you can do so here:

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!

Winners!

Wolf Angelus - Stay Back!

GravesAJ - A Whole New World

Wolf Angelus - Handsome Devil

KISHK0 - Soaring The Mountains

EXFIB0 - I'll take a nap

Runner Ups!

Kovko - Dream

StateofMynd42 - Nocturnal Daydream

Honourable Mentions!

Wolf Angelus - Broken Path

DarkDolphin - Curiosity

KISHK0 - Hunter

GravesAJ - Ready for Anything!

GravesAJ - Best of Friends

Christoph Eggart - Winter Journey

DarkDolphin - Through The Storm

EXFIB0 - Finally! We made it

Wolf Angelus - Ruined

Wolf Angelus - Hot Escape

Panoramic 360 Stereoscopic 3D!

Winners!

EXFIB0 - River Curves

Honourable Mentions!

Wolf Angelus - Tranquillity!

Kovko - Separated

KISHKO - World Scar

KISHKO - Crystal Cave

KISHK0 - Obelisk

Wolf Angelus - Harmony & Chaos

Freeform!

Winners!

DarkDolphin - Curiosity

Wolf Angelus - Jerb Bath Time!

Honourable Mentions!

Wolf Angelus - Keeping Hydrated!

Kovko - What is love

Wolf Angelus - Jerb Bath Time! [Retro Filter]

EXFIB0 - Tapejara Twins

EXFIB0 - Dragons vs Wyverns

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...

Wolf Angelus for Flow of Time!

and the string to run the PGM:

Quote PGM Settings:

PGMapName=Flow of Time

PGTerrainPropertiesString=MapSeed=28;LandscapeRadius=1.0;Water Frequency=3.0;Mountains Frequency=8.0;Mountains Slope=2.05;MountainsHeight=1.85;Turbulence Power=0.0125;Shore Slope=1.0;WaterLevel=-0.72;GrassDensity=1.0;JungleGrassDensity=0.05;ErosionSteps=4;TreesGroundSlopeAccuracy=0.5;DepositionStrength=0.5;ErosionStrength=0.75;OceanFloorLevel=-1.0;SnowBiomeSize=0.3;RWBiomeSize=0.13;MountainBiomeStart=-0.35;MountainsTreeDensity=0.06;JungleBiomeStart=-0.65;IslandBorderCurveExp=4.0;MaxSawnPointHeight=0.2;SnowGrassDensity=0.25;MountainGrassDensity=0.007;SnowMountainGrassDensity=0.15;UnderwaterObjectsDensity=0.5;SnowMountainsTreeDensity=0.03;TreeDensity=0.005;JungleTreeDensity=0.55;RedWoodTreeDensity=0.031;SnowTreeDensity=1.2;RedwoodGrassDensity=0.07;ShoreTreeDensity=0.32;SnowShoreTreeDensity=0.04;DeepWaterBiomesDepth=-0.24;InlandWaterObjectsDensity=0.5;ShorelineStartOffset=0.01;ShorelineThickness=0.015;MountainGeneralTreesPercent=0.15;TerrainScaleMultiplier=(X=1.0f,Y=1.0f,Z=1.0f);SnowBiomeLocation=(X=0.2f,Y=0.2f);RWForestBiomeLocation=(X=0.65f,Y=0.65f);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:

...and this great explanation video from Thick Freedom!

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 76 is...

It's a tie!

GamerPerfection - A Horse With No Name

and

GlowhooPenguin's ARK Moments!

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 76 is…

It's another tie! Congratulations to..

RYANT1UM for their Santa's Sleigh!

and Valoule for their GuitARK!

Album:

We'd also like to give an honourable mention to Kirioku for their Castle!

If you'd like to check out the rest of the submissions for this weeks contests, you can do so here:

Fan Feature!

Guide to Ordering Groups by MrDolphin

Dino Surfing and "A Dance with Dinos" Guide. by MrDolphin

ARK RAID CAMS: PRISONERS RAID! - ARK: SURVIVAL EVOLVED by H.O.D GAMING

AVIARY STRUCTURES MOD - ARK: EVOLUTION by VIRTUAL REALMS

Ark Cabana Resort!- Ark Building Montage Monday EP 3 by RYANT1UM

Snow Biome Exploration - Pooptopia - Season2 E52 - Ark Survival Evolved by kortniechan Gaming

Top 5 PvP Base Locations on The Island [Part 2] PvP Tips & Tricks - ARK Survival Evolved by KISHKO

Strong 6x4 Vault Base Build - ft. Hidden Generator, Quad Walls and Double Foundations. by EXFIB0

3x3 PvP Base Design w/ Dropped Vault, Flyer Pen, Crops - Building Tutorial - ARK: Survival Evolved by KISHKO

"BOXED IN" - Rogue Two (Episode 1) by Lame Wolf Productions

Kye923 | 方舟:生存進化 ARK | 木頭人挑戰 Mannequin Challenge

2x1 Starter Solo Base Design with Fabricator - ARK Building Tips & Tricks - ARK: Survival Evolved by KISHKO

Painted Horse Chalicotherium by Sharkcat



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817329038

Little Helper Chalicotherium by Sharkcat



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817294690

Kapro. First art in SAI by tianat



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=816671058

MS Paint Rex by President Pepe



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=819148848

Ark babies by Darken-Si



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817217514

Holo-Rex by President Pepe



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=816873038

First comic about ark : logic evolved xD(SKETCH) by tianat



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817776451

How do you hunt Tapejaras? You don't. by Violet



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818176036

DodoZilla by Tbjbu2



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817613395

Hiding Dilo by GoldHeart



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818506073

Leviathan Dossier by Mega



Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=819726675

Workshop Spotlight

Workshopper: Impulse

Mods: Capitalism Series

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198018631975/myworkshopfiles/?appid=346110

Ced: Hey Survivors! I'm here with Impulse, the creator of the capitalism mod series. It's been one of the more popular mods for the last 6 months so I thought it would be good to catch up with Impulse. Impulse, glad to have you here! So your mod is a very interesting concept! I can see it adding a bit of an economic feel to servers, which I find exciting! What was the inspiration for creating this mod?

Quote Impulse: First I tried the Shopping Mod from Davetiger and Krono's Trade Center from Ionic_Ovrdose and got stuck with Krono's Trade Center for a while. But with further playing progress i noticed that something is lacking and that it would great if someone could combine the amazing features introduced by those two mods. After a while i also noticed that Davetiger and Ionic hadn't done very much on their mods and asking them to further progress their implementation of an economy system wouldn't be of much success. So around late July i figured that i should give it a try and learn the ArkDevKit.

Ced: Cool! I'm actually familiar with both of those mods! So tell me what it was like to pick the Ark Dev Kit and start modding. Have you had any game development or development experience prior to that?

Quote Impulse: I had about zero experience concerning game development or using a game engine for programming, especially the visual scripting was hard work to get familiar with. I had programming experience before with languages like, Java, JavaScript, PHP, ABAP, VBA ... so you could say there was a certain background. Another very important aspect was, that I had zero experience with blender and gimp before, but through the DevKit i also was forced to learn that too

Ced: That's amazing! Often, I find that people who mod haven't really had a ton of experience doing game development. Do you feel like you past experience in programming helped you when it came to create this mod?

Quote Impulse: Definitely, it helps understanding to work with structs, arrays, events and all the programming logic part ;). It also teaches you how to sanitize your code, for more complex works... so that you will know what you have done after some time passed

Ced: I find that to be true as well although it definitely takes some adjusting if you are used to programming in a more native way like I was and sounds like you were. So let's try to explain the capitalism mod for those who are reading and aren’t familiar with the other economy mods you mentioned. The basic idea is that there is currency and you can use that currency to buy items?

Quote Impulse: the basic idea was to trade stuff with other players and as a means to do so I had to implement something for the exchange, so the currency came into place and as a way to get it I needed to introduce some "npc" trader. With the currency it was way easier to program the whole thing than to do natural exchanges with e. g. stone for wood or something like that. This seems pretty obvious

Ced: Yea, back when I was thinking of implementing something similar, that was where I got stuck. I knew there had to be currency to regulate the trading/economy. I notice that there are several "modules" that are available for the base currency mod. Can you explain a little bit about the idea behind that. Was it so that people using the mod can customize their experience?

Quote Impulse: I read in the comments of several other mods that the community wanted in some cases more freedom to choose from parts of fairly big mod, in terms of file size. And I also knew that there are player on special servers like RP servers, that only want a currency for their server. There is also the eco decoration mod out there which implements some empty nicely decorated trading desks, so if the want to trade their way they could only load the currency and would be happy ;). After I came to the conclusion to make it as modular as i'm capable of, I also noticed that it brings the advantage of not screwing up my whole project if one module is corrupted

Ced: That's a good point.. It allows you to work on things in a more modular fashion! So it seems like the mod is relatively stable. Are there any plans to add to it in the future?

Quote Impulse: Currently I have a fairly huge project running to bring the whole system to new level, but therefore I first need to complete my study of the C++ language and start to learn the unreal c++ framework, so that i'll be able to write a server side plugin. This is all a means to implement analytics functions which are used with AI to scan the trade log which will be sent by each table to a StatisticsProcessor.

So to keep it short i want to implement a price finding algorithm which should be able to adjust prices according to automatically found trade clusters on a map. This idea came from EVE Online where I played a long time as so called inter trade hub hauler. The player will then be able to trade off price differences on a map or even overcross ark ;). But first things first, this is only a vision ;P

Ced: Wow that sounds really exciting. I haven't really heard of an idea quite like it. You'll have to keep me updated on the progress Well it appears it has been a warm reception from the community on your work. In fact, I was looking at the stats on your mod, and your mod is one of the few where the unique visitors to the mod page is less than the people that actually subscribed. What this implies is that people are joining servers that are running your mod. That has to be a good feeling right?

Quote Impulse: Yes i'm quite happy that it gets this attention and that many people are willing to report bugs and even helping sorting them out

Ced: We really have a great community! It's been great chatting with you Impulse! Any last words for the community or the Wildcard team?

Quote Impulse: I'm really excited about the things which will come from studio wildcard and other modders, keep up the good work

As always if you’ve got anything to share please get in touch and be sure to follow us on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/survivetheark

Facebook: www.facebook.com/survivetheark

Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/playark

Imzy:

Much love,

Wildcard Jat, Jen & the ARK: Survival Evolved Team