Hey Survivors! Welcome to the latest edition of the Community Crunch!

ARK Digest 53!

Thank you for all of your questions, Survivors! We're excited to be bringing back the ARK Digest as it's been quite awhile since we had one. We plan to do these approximately once a month going forward so Digest 54 will take place near the end of September.

Here is our question and answer session with Lead Programmer Chris Willoughby!

Survivor Tiny Hippo asks, “I'm getting the feeling that Extinction will be a no-flyer map like Aberration was. The new cryo-chamber system, the climbing Enforcer, the drone, floating boxes, and the Gasbags seem like things that would replace flying, so I just get the idea that there may not be fliers on Extinction. Would you please clarify if there will or won't be?”

Quote Fliers are allowed on Extinction! There will be a number of existing fliers that spawn in Extinction, and we’re working on a few more to add to your collection. That said, there will be new challenges for fliers on this map that we’re excited for you to discover and contend with.

Survivor Max K asks, “Any news on the kibble tree rework?”

Quote While imperfect, a lot of thought and work went into building the kibble tree as it stands now. A number of us internally would like to make major changes to this, potentially rebuilding it from the ground up. The reality is that this represents a significant undertaking, and would be very disruptive to the game. If we decide to tackle this, it will be post Extinction.

Survivor B Anthony asks, “Will there be artifacts in Extinction? And will the Obelisks still be used to go to the boss's room in Extinction?”

Quote We’re still hammering out the exact summoning mechanics, but the Titan battles in Extinction will take place on the live map. There will not be separate boss fight arenas for them.

Survivor Caleb H asks, “Is there a scheduled frame of time that the S+ mod mechanics will be implemented? If so, when could we expect to see them? I'm sure the community would love to see the progress you have made.”

Quote S+ is a shining example of the benefits of releasing mod tools to the community. It contains a number of improvements to the building system that we’d like to integrate. That said, it also contains a number of features and mechanics that circumvent systems in the game. Given this, we aren’t planning to integrate the mod wholesale. We are, however, examining and tracking individual improvements that would make sense to integrate. Any improvements in this area would come after Extinction launches.

Survivor Kim R asks, “Have you definitely decided for or against whether some mechanics from the expansion packs might carry over to other maps? I'm thinking of the cliff platforms that would be cool to build on the Island or other maps.”

Quote When we set out to build an expansion, we seek to add gameplay that adds to the core experience. Our goal, then, is to allow those mechanics to be used in all the places that make sense. Cliff Platforms work on all maps, for example. A number of the features we’re adding in Extinction are meant to be used across all of the other maps. They’re meant to change things up on multiple levels.

Survivor Kim R asks, “Is it, or will it be, possible to run multiple events as a server owner? For example, both the Easter Event and the ARKaeology Event?”

Quote Unfortunately, no. When we set out earlier this year to rebuild the event system in a way that they would persist, we decided not to ensure compatibility between them. Largely they modify many of the same bits, so making them fully compatible would take a significant amount of work and lower the likelihood that we could implement cool things like the bone pile spawning in the ARKaeology event.

Survivor Austin K asks, “With Extinction being the biggest DLC you've done yet, can we expect most if not all dinos in the game to be featured on the map?”

Quote A number of our previous creatures will inhabit the Extinction map. As with our other expansions, we’ll bring across the ones that make the most sense and incorporate them. In addition, we’re adding the highly aggressive corrupted versions of a number of creatures to provide new challenges.

Survivor BrokenRealm asks, “Will there be another Ark: Fear Evolved?”

Quote We like creating new and interesting events for our players. Unfortunately, most of our effort at that time will be focused on ensuring a smooth and enjoyable launch for Extinction. Doing a Halloween event and wrapping the expansion at the same time would have a negative impact on both, so we’ll be skipping Halloween this year.

Survivor Dave M asks, “Will there be any new mods coming out for console players?

Quote We’re aware that our console players would like to see more in this space. We don’t have anything specific to announce at the moment, but stay tuned.

Survivor Joaquin S asks, “If you had to describe Extinction in one to three words, what would they be?”

Quote Prodigious, challenging, fresh. The Titans bring a number of new elements to the core experience through public boss fights and taming of even larger creatures. The new in-world event system we’re building will bring new gameplay to both PVE and PVP servers. Finally, the introduction of the city brings a whole new dynamic to exploration and building. I’m really excited about these new elements.

If you have a question you want answered by the ARK dev team please submit your questions with the Subject "ARK Q&A" to our email address: arkfans@studiowildcard.com

Community Livestream #6 Roundup!

On August 16th we had our sixth Community Livestream. Thank you to all of those who attended and participated! The community team had a lot of fun and we hope you did as well. If you weren't able to catch the stream you can watch the video-on-demand on our Twitch page or by clicking on the video below.

This stream we were joined by the creator of the mod Auction House, Ghazlawl. Auction House allows you to create, bid on, and purchase auctions for items, weapons, blueprints, skins, dinos, etc, from players on your server or players on other servers who are also using the mod. On top of that, modded items and dinos are supported! The mod has its own intuiative UI to allow for easy trading.

Chris, Zen and Jen then went on a taming adventure to find a Tek Raptor, which was newly introduced last week in our Extinction Chronicles III update. It was an eventful journey around the island full of action, and by action we mean being pounced on by every raptor except a Tek one.

After a suggestion from chat our adventurers made their way towards the volcano and it was on the way that they finally spotted a female Tek Raptor and tamed her, later dubbed "Raptotron" by chat. Success!

We are accepting any type of ARK related fanart to be featured in the Showcase section of the stream and entries are always open. This can be drawings, videos, builds, ANSEL screenshots, handmade crafts, anything ARK related!

You can submit your ARKwork to our streaming email address: arkfans@studiowildcard.com

Be sure to follow us on our Twitch page so you don't miss a stream! twitch.tv/survivetheark

We'll be hosting our next Community Live Stream on Thursday, August the 30th at 1PM EST! We hope to see you there

Mod Community Updates!

Hello everyone! Zen here. It's that time again for some mod news and reminders.

I have been getting some suggestions about changes to make for the tutorial bounty board. I will be thinking about those and consider the proper way to achieve the things people want to get from those suggestions. There are some claims that have been declared this month as well so I will be reviewing them shortly... or at least I should be, but I am actually in the middle of moving into a new apartment, so the bounty claims might be a bit delayed as I will be quite busy from now until the end of the month. I will get to them though, don't worry. The next workshop video will likely be delayed as well since my recording setup may not be ready in time.

I also have another Wildcard Workshop modding tutorial ready for you. I got some asks recently to cover event dispatchers, so here we go. These things are pretty useful so I would give it a watch.

Fanart of the Week!

We would like to give a special shoutout this week to artist Frillface for their amazing ARKwork created in MSPaint!

PS4 (EU) Sale!

ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Explorer's Edition

ARK: Season Pass

ARK: Scorched Earth

ARK: Aberration

ARK: Complete Your Season Pass

ARK: Evolution Event!

Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 24th of August at 1 PM EST until Monday the 27th of August at 3 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rates

2x Taming Rates

2x EXP Rates

That's it for this post guys! As always if you’ve got anything to share you can find us at:

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark

Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark

Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark

Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark

Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark

Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110

Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

All the best,

Studio Wildcard