Hello Survivors!

Studio Wildcard is proud to announce ARK’s second expansion pack, “Aberration”!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV-gcT9nYyc
http://store.steampowered.com/app/708770/ARK_Aberration__Expansion_Pack/

Survivors will find themselves waking up on a derelict, malfunctioning ARK with an elaborate underground biome system, where they will face exotic new challenges unlike anything before: extreme radioactive sunlight and environmental hazards, ziplines, wingsuits, climbing gear, cave dwellings, charge-batteries, and far more, along with a stable of extraordinary new creatures await within the mysterious depths. But beware the ‘Nameless’: unrelenting, Element-infused humanoids which have evolved into vicious light-hating monstrosities! You’ll uncover the ultimate secrets of the ARKs, and discover what the future holds in store for those strong and clever enough to survive!






Aberration places survivors on a damaged ARK: its internal atmosphere has leaked away, resulting in a harsh surface with intense radiation, and a plethora of lush biomes underground. With the maintenance systems of this ARK malfunctioning, the many hazards, creatures, and nature of the environment present a thrilling new world to explore and master.






The intense radiation of Aberration has led to incredible genetic mutations, resulting in new creatures with amazing abilities! Among others, clamber up walls & glide through the air on the back of a camouflaging chameleon-like ‘Rock Drake’, keep the dark at bay with a friendly ‘Lantern Pug’, grab and toss multiple creatures simultaneously with a massive ‘Cave Crustacean’, or -- if you are talented enough to tame one -- command the vile ‘Nameless Queen’ to impregnate your foes with a horrifying reproductive chest-burster!






New tools are on-hand to survive on the world of Aberration, while opening up many possibilities for new competitive and cooperative scenarios. Traverse the ARK using cave-climbing picks, gliding wingsuits, and ziplines. Learn advanced engrams to dominate the harsh environment, protect yourself with hazmat outfits, charge lanterns, explosive rounds, batteries, glowsticks, railguns and much more. Thrive by gathering new resources, using fishing baskets, gas collectors, fortify your home within the caverns using cliff structures, and much more!






Earthquakes, radiation exposure, gas leaks, and Element chambers are among the many hazards that survivors will learn to grapple with Aberration’s varied biomes, both aboveground and below the surface. But among the greatest challenges on this ruined ARK is the hierarchy of unrelenting Nameless, requiring constant vigilance & Charge Energy to defend against!



And in the deepest depths of Aberration, their terrifying -- yet somehow familiar -- master awaits… will YOU be among the survivors powerful enough to face him?



Working on Aberration has been a challenging and exciting time for us here at Studio Wildcard. Aberration is filled with new world building techniques and new mechanics that have never been seen in ARK before. We hope that you all enjoy playing in this new expansion pack, and we look forward to seeing your reactions, posts, videos, streams, artwork, and feedback as you explore the world of Aberration.

Thank you for your continued support, we would not be where we are today without you!



Best of luck conquering Aberration!


http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

ARK is currently on sale for 60% off on the base game and 33% off the Season Pass!

Hello Survivors!

Studio Wildcard is proud to announce ARK’s second expansion pack, “Aberration”!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV-gcT9nYyc
http://store.steampowered.com/app/708770/ARK_Aberration__Expansion_Pack/

Survivors will find themselves waking up on a derelict, malfunctioning ARK with an elaborate underground biome system, where they will face exotic new challenges unlike anything before: extreme radioactive sunlight and environmental hazards, ziplines, wingsuits, climbing gear, cave dwellings, charge-batteries, and far more, along with a stable of extraordinary new creatures await within the mysterious depths. But beware the ‘Nameless’: unrelenting, Element-infused humanoids which have evolved into vicious light-hating monstrosities! You’ll uncover the ultimate secrets of the ARKs, and discover what the future holds in store for those strong and clever enough to survive!






Aberration places survivors on a damaged ARK: its internal atmosphere has leaked away, resulting in a harsh surface with intense radiation, and a plethora of lush biomes underground. With the maintenance systems of this ARK malfunctioning, the many hazards, creatures, and nature of the environment present a thrilling new world to explore and master.






The intense radiation of Aberration has led to incredible genetic mutations, resulting in new creatures with amazing abilities! Among others, clamber up walls & glide through the air on the back of a camouflaging chameleon-like ‘Rock Drake’, keep the dark at bay with a friendly ‘Lantern Pug’, grab and toss multiple creatures simultaneously with a massive ‘Cave Crustacean’, or -- if you are talented enough to tame one -- command the vile ‘Nameless Queen’ to impregnate your foes with a horrifying reproductive chest-burster!






New tools are on-hand to survive on the world of Aberration, while opening up many possibilities for new competitive and cooperative scenarios. Traverse the ARK using cave-climbing picks, gliding wingsuits, and ziplines. Learn advanced engrams to dominate the harsh environment, protect yourself with hazmat outfits, charge lanterns, explosive rounds, batteries, glowsticks, railguns and much more. Thrive by gathering new resources, using fishing baskets, gas collectors, fortify your home within the caverns using cliff structures, and much more!






Earthquakes, radiation exposure, gas leaks, and Element chambers are among the many hazards that survivors will learn to grapple with Aberration’s varied biomes, both aboveground and below the surface. But among the greatest challenges on this ruined ARK is the hierarchy of unrelenting Nameless, requiring constant vigilance & Charge Energy to defend against!



And in the deepest depths of Aberration, their terrifying -- yet somehow familiar -- master awaits… will YOU be among the survivors powerful enough to face him?



Working on Aberration has been a challenging and exciting time for us here at Studio Wildcard. Aberration is filled with new world building techniques and new mechanics that have never been seen in ARK before. We hope that you all enjoy playing in this new expansion pack, and we look forward to seeing your reactions, posts, videos, streams, artwork, and feedback as you explore the world of Aberration.

Thank you for your continued support, we would not be where we are today without you!



Best of luck conquering Aberration!


http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

ARK is currently on sale for 60% off on the base game and 33% off the Season Pass!

What an intriguing discovery survivors, what could this be?




The wait is almost over! Aberration will have a simultaneous release across all three platforms at 8 AM Pacific Time on the 12th.

In “ARK: Aberration” Survivors will find themselves waking up on a derelict, malfunctioning ARK with an elaborate underground biome system, where they will face exotic new challenges unlike anything before: extreme radioactive sunlight and environmental hazards, ziplines, wingsuits, climbing gear, cave dwellings, charge-batteries, and far more, along with a stable of extraordinary new creatures await within the mysterious depths. But beware the ‘Nameless’: unrelenting, Element-infused humanoids which have evolved into vicious light-hating monstrosities! You’ll uncover the ultimate secrets of the ARKs, and discover what the future holds in store for those strong and clever enough to survive!

To help ease the pain of waiting over the next few days, feast your ears on Aberration's theme song, created by Gareth Coker.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-wildcard/ark-aberration-theme




One of our rewards for collecting donations during our Extra Life charity stream was to get a skin of your choice put into the game. Because our fundraising event was such an overwhelming success we decided to award the top four donators instead of just the top one. On December 12th, four new hat skins will be added to the game.

These skins were chosen by the top fund raisers: x3Belle, PepperJC, windxiv, and Dakhar, and the skins are the: Cute Dino Helmet Mask, Chili Mask, Otter Mask, and Scary Skull Mask respectively. These can be earned by defeating the boss on Aberration. Thank you once again to x3Belle, PepperJC, windxiv, & Dakhar, and to everyone who participated in our Extra Life event!


It’s another exciting month in the Sponsored Mod Program! The mod entering the program this month is not one that we think many people are aware of. The modder, B.Cheers, has been around the modding community for quite some time. Some of you might remember some of his older work like Ark Futurism or Storage+. Without further ado, let’s get into it.





This month we will be sponsoring ARK Futurism Final Existence. What’s really cool about this mod is that these are all custom assets made by B.Cheers. There’s no doubt a ton of work went into making all the content that’s in this mod. At the moment, there’s a mostly complete structure set that uses a half wall design. This offers more flexibility to all the ARK builders. More importantly, there are mechs that can equip armor and weapons! With the addition of Tek Tier, I knew someone would take it to the next level.



B.Cheers has a development tracker if you’d like to keep up to date with what he’s working on and things that are to come. We believe this mod has a really promising future and might serve as a supplement to your Tek Tier existence. Don’t take our word for it, be sure to check it out for yourself!




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 11th at 12 PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rate
2x Taming Rate
2x EXP Rate
2x Maturing
2x Hatching
2x Gestation
2x Faster Mating Interval Rates

Also, we won't be running an Evolution Event next weekend as we'll be taking a look at Aberration numbers and judging initial balance/feedback. Get in and take advantage of the rates whilst you can! :)

-------------

To read the rest of the Community Crunch this week, check out our announcement post on survivetheark!

Keep on surviving!

What an intriguing discovery survivors, what could this be?




The wait is almost over! Aberration will have a simultaneous release across all three platforms at 8 AM Pacific Time on the 12th.

In “ARK: Aberration” Survivors will find themselves waking up on a derelict, malfunctioning ARK with an elaborate underground biome system, where they will face exotic new challenges unlike anything before: extreme radioactive sunlight and environmental hazards, ziplines, wingsuits, climbing gear, cave dwellings, charge-batteries, and far more, along with a stable of extraordinary new creatures await within the mysterious depths. But beware the ‘Nameless’: unrelenting, Element-infused humanoids which have evolved into vicious light-hating monstrosities! You’ll uncover the ultimate secrets of the ARKs, and discover what the future holds in store for those strong and clever enough to survive!

To help ease the pain of waiting over the next few days, feast your ears on Aberration's theme song, created by Gareth Coker.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-wildcard/ark-aberration-theme




One of our rewards for collecting donations during our Extra Life charity stream was to get a skin of your choice put into the game. Because our fundraising event was such an overwhelming success we decided to award the top four donators instead of just the top one. On December 12th, four new hat skins will be added to the game.

These skins were chosen by the top fund raisers: x3Belle, PepperJC, windxiv, and Dakhar, and the skins are the: Cute Dino Helmet Mask, Chili Mask, Otter Mask, and Scary Skull Mask respectively. These can be earned by defeating the boss on Aberration. Thank you once again to x3Belle, PepperJC, windxiv, & Dakhar, and to everyone who participated in our Extra Life event!


It’s another exciting month in the Sponsored Mod Program! The mod entering the program this month is not one that we think many people are aware of. The modder, B.Cheers, has been around the modding community for quite some time. Some of you might remember some of his older work like Ark Futurism or Storage+. Without further ado, let’s get into it.





This month we will be sponsoring ARK Futurism Final Existence. What’s really cool about this mod is that these are all custom assets made by B.Cheers. There’s no doubt a ton of work went into making all the content that’s in this mod. At the moment, there’s a mostly complete structure set that uses a half wall design. This offers more flexibility to all the ARK builders. More importantly, there are mechs that can equip armor and weapons! With the addition of Tek Tier, I knew someone would take it to the next level.



B.Cheers has a development tracker if you’d like to keep up to date with what he’s working on and things that are to come. We believe this mod has a really promising future and might serve as a supplement to your Tek Tier existence. Don’t take our word for it, be sure to check it out for yourself!




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 11th at 12 PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rate
2x Taming Rate
2x EXP Rate
2x Maturing
2x Hatching
2x Gestation
2x Faster Mating Interval Rates

Also, we won't be running an Evolution Event next weekend as we'll be taking a look at Aberration numbers and judging initial balance/feedback. Get in and take advantage of the rates whilst you can! :)

-------------

To read the rest of the Community Crunch this week, check out our announcement post on survivetheark!

Keep on surviving!

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




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 4th at 12 PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rate
2x Taming Rate
2x EXP Rate

-------------

To read the rest of the Community Crunch this week, check out our announcement post on survivetheark!

Keep on surviving!

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




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 4th at 12 PM EST. All Official Servers will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Harvesting Rate
2x Taming Rate
2x EXP Rate

-------------

To read the rest of the Community Crunch this week, check out our announcement post on survivetheark!

Keep on surviving!

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




Haven’t yet explored the island of ARK? Nows your chance to get in as ARK has huge discounts during the Autumn Sale!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

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




Haven’t yet explored the island of ARK? Nows your chance to get in as ARK has huge discounts during the Autumn Sale!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9T_uPssVB4

We are excited to announce we have a release date for Aberration: December 12th of this year. 

All of us here at Studio Wildcard have been working diligently to progress through the Aberration workflow in anticipation of getting it into your hands. Aberration will be an ARK experience unlike anything survivors have seen so far. We hope you are all as excited as we are for its release!




A few days ago we announced a big change to the game wherein we would be limiting the use of turrets within a radius on our Official Servers. We have been keeping track of all the feedback, reading all the threads, and we understand that this is an important change. Therefore, we'll be making some modifications to our initial plan in order to deal with the concerns that have arisen, as well as ensure a smoother transition to the new turret system for all players. Here's what's going down:

We are no longer hard-limiting turrets on the 5th of December, that timeline has changed. We still plan to hard-limit them, but it'll be pushed further out now that we'll be introducing a new kind of turret into the mix. Here's the new plan:

PC players can expect the new "Heavy Turret" on the 27th, it will launch with an active server-side turret limit specifically for "Heavy Turrets". We'll take the time to monitor player feedback and our official servers to see if there's anything that we missed, so then we'll have time to consider how to fix and address those concerns. This means that if you're over the visual limit on your regular Auto Turrets, you'll be fine (for now). However, you won't be able to place the Heavy Turrets, unless you're within the limit. We recommend taking advantage of this time to slowly transition your base to using the new Heavy Turrets over the old ones. 

When Aberration releases on the 12th December, it will have the turret hard-limit enabled on that map from the get-go. This means that neither regular Auto Turrets or Heavy Turrets can be placed on Aberration above the limit. After some time -- likely in the latter half of December -- this change will be enabled on the other maps, however, we'll be providing 2 weeks notice beforehand so you can make any adjustments as necessary. The idea is that you can immediately use the Heavy Turrets in the meantime to prepare for the change while ensuring your base remains well-defended.

For those who hadn't seen some of our previous dialogue on the change, you can check out this short blurb post by Senior Technical & Gameplay Designer, Kayd Hendricks (aka TheRightHand). He covers what are our current thought-processes are, as well as shares some information that we had discussed previously.

Turrets 3: The Turret... ening.

So, more stuff to talk about with regards to turrets. It's a party and everyone is invited!

We've had a couple of pow-wows and hammered a few more things into stone, I just want to share them in kind of an official capacity as well as do a round-up of everything you need to know if you're just tuning in:

- We found and identified that super dense clusters of turrets have been causing our servers to literally grind to a halt. In the worst of cases, a base full of turrets was causing a 400-500ms per tick delay on the server. (The entire rest of the game only takes up about 240-250ms in the worst cases. This means the turrets were costing up to twice as much as the entire rest of the game per server tick.
- We're implementing a limit on the number of turrets you can have in a given radius. This radius is 10,000 Unreal Units (Which is about 100 meters). Picture attached shows a 10,000 uu sphere for visualization.
- New BobCorp Automated Laterally Attenuated Nano-Cell Electronic Defense system will be available on the 27th of this month on PC, to allow players to start replacing their existing turrets.
- Heavy Turrets will require normal turrets to craft.
- Heavy Turrets are currently designed to be about 4-5x as powerful as a normal turret.
- Stego Armor Plating is being made much less effective.

The above are things that are guaranteed to be happening when we roll out these turret limiting changes.

Here is stuff that's on our list to test and consider further:

- Veggie Cake balancing.
- Tek Turret needs to remain top-dog turret.
- Is there anything we can further do to lower the cost of each turret to allow us to safely increase the number that players can place.
- Knockback for some/all of the bullet-firing turrets?
- % health damage on tick for Plant Species? (Slow poison? Prevent healing?)
- Throwing explosives from the backs of dinos? 
- Can we further weaponize bees?

We're still reading all of the threads that are up and as we decide we're /definitely/ going to do stuff, I'll write up another post about it. 

Expect the new turret on the 27th, and then all of our intrepid community members can make builds with them and if there's anything that they find that we missed, yay we'll have time to consider how to fix those things as well.

Note: Xbox and PS4 will not be receiving these turret changes until after Aberration has been released.

I know it's not a big post but I figured I'd be consise. 

You can see more details in my other threads:

WHY:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/274823-turret-changes-a-technical-talk-about-why/

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/275129-turrets-2-electric-boogaloo-or-what-are-we-actually-doing/

We'd like to wish all survivors out there a Happy Thanksgiving and hope that have a great weekend! As for our plans, we will not be hosting an event for Thanksgiving this year due to our efforts being focused on Aberration and getting it out in December. We apologise for the lack of event this time of year, we love hosting holiday events, but unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to do so. Though, with Christmas around the corner, you won't have to wait long for a special Christmas themed Holiday Event!




Haven’t yet explored the island of ARK? Nows your chance to get in as ARK has huge discounts during the Autumn Sale!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

That's it for this post guys! As always if you want to keep up with the latest news 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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9T_uPssVB4

We are excited to announce we have a release date for Aberration: December 12th of this year. 

All of us here at Studio Wildcard have been working diligently to progress through the Aberration workflow in anticipation of getting it into your hands. Aberration will be an ARK experience unlike anything survivors have seen so far. We hope you are all as excited as we are for its release!




A few days ago we announced a big change to the game wherein we would be limiting the use of turrets within a radius on our Official Servers. We have been keeping track of all the feedback, reading all the threads, and we understand that this is an important change. Therefore, we'll be making some modifications to our initial plan in order to deal with the concerns that have arisen, as well as ensure a smoother transition to the new turret system for all players. Here's what's going down:

We are no longer hard-limiting turrets on the 5th of December, that timeline has changed. We still plan to hard-limit them, but it'll be pushed further out now that we'll be introducing a new kind of turret into the mix. Here's the new plan:

PC players can expect the new "Heavy Turret" on the 27th, it will launch with an active server-side turret limit specifically for "Heavy Turrets". We'll take the time to monitor player feedback and our official servers to see if there's anything that we missed, so then we'll have time to consider how to fix and address those concerns. This means that if you're over the visual limit on your regular Auto Turrets, you'll be fine (for now). However, you won't be able to place the Heavy Turrets, unless you're within the limit. We recommend taking advantage of this time to slowly transition your base to using the new Heavy Turrets over the old ones. 

When Aberration releases on the 12th December, it will have the turret hard-limit enabled on that map from the get-go. This means that neither regular Auto Turrets or Heavy Turrets can be placed on Aberration above the limit. After some time -- likely in the latter half of December -- this change will be enabled on the other maps, however, we'll be providing 2 weeks notice beforehand so you can make any adjustments as necessary. The idea is that you can immediately use the Heavy Turrets in the meantime to prepare for the change while ensuring your base remains well-defended.

For those who hadn't seen some of our previous dialogue on the change, you can check out this short blurb post by Senior Technical & Gameplay Designer, Kayd Hendricks (aka TheRightHand). He covers what are our current thought-processes are, as well as shares some information that we had discussed previously.

Turrets 3: The Turret... ening.

So, more stuff to talk about with regards to turrets. It's a party and everyone is invited!

We've had a couple of pow-wows and hammered a few more things into stone, I just want to share them in kind of an official capacity as well as do a round-up of everything you need to know if you're just tuning in:

- We found and identified that super dense clusters of turrets have been causing our servers to literally grind to a halt. In the worst of cases, a base full of turrets was causing a 400-500ms per tick delay on the server. (The entire rest of the game only takes up about 240-250ms in the worst cases. This means the turrets were costing up to twice as much as the entire rest of the game per server tick.
- We're implementing a limit on the number of turrets you can have in a given radius. This radius is 10,000 Unreal Units (Which is about 100 meters). Picture attached shows a 10,000 uu sphere for visualization.
- New BobCorp Automated Laterally Attenuated Nano-Cell Electronic Defense system will be available on the 27th of this month on PC, to allow players to start replacing their existing turrets.
- Heavy Turrets will require normal turrets to craft.
- Heavy Turrets are currently designed to be about 4-5x as powerful as a normal turret.
- Stego Armor Plating is being made much less effective.

The above are things that are guaranteed to be happening when we roll out these turret limiting changes.

Here is stuff that's on our list to test and consider further:

- Veggie Cake balancing.
- Tek Turret needs to remain top-dog turret.
- Is there anything we can further do to lower the cost of each turret to allow us to safely increase the number that players can place.
- Knockback for some/all of the bullet-firing turrets?
- % health damage on tick for Plant Species? (Slow poison? Prevent healing?)
- Throwing explosives from the backs of dinos? 
- Can we further weaponize bees?

We're still reading all of the threads that are up and as we decide we're /definitely/ going to do stuff, I'll write up another post about it. 

Expect the new turret on the 27th, and then all of our intrepid community members can make builds with them and if there's anything that they find that we missed, yay we'll have time to consider how to fix those things as well.

Note: Xbox and PS4 will not be receiving these turret changes until after Aberration has been released.

I know it's not a big post but I figured I'd be consise. 

You can see more details in my other threads:

WHY:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/274823-turret-changes-a-technical-talk-about-why/

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/275129-turrets-2-electric-boogaloo-or-what-are-we-actually-doing/

We'd like to wish all survivors out there a Happy Thanksgiving and hope that have a great weekend! As for our plans, we will not be hosting an event for Thanksgiving this year due to our efforts being focused on Aberration and getting it out in December. We apologise for the lack of event this time of year, we love hosting holiday events, but unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to do so. Though, with Christmas around the corner, you won't have to wait long for a special Christmas themed Holiday Event!




Haven’t yet explored the island of ARK? Nows your chance to get in as ARK has huge discounts during the Autumn Sale!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/696680/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Season_Pass/

That's it for this post guys! As always if you want to keep up with the latest news 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