ARK: Survival Evolved

Ark's latest dinosaur, the Giganotosaurus Furiosa, is a bottomless well of rage that can eat its way through stone walls and unseat riders whenever it has a temper tantrum. It's slow, but with every hit its "rage reaction" makes its bite more powerful and it gains more stamina. The developers refer to it as a "captial beast of war"—the Super Star Destroyer of the dinosaur world, then.

The developers confirm that "fighting a Giganotosaurus directly is always a bad idea", and not only because of its tendency to bite harder when enraged. It can turn on fellow dinosaurs and hunters during tantrums, and has zero respect for buildings. It reminds me of the Horned Reaper from Dungeon Keeper. He can break out of most prisons you can ever build for him, so you're better off keeping him calm and happy. Or else.

Ark is being updated regularly at the moment. The dino babies and breeding updated arrived three weeks ago, and the world was invaded by mighty skelesaurs during Halloween.

ARK: Survival Evolved - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Colossal, strong, initially sluggish but quick to anger, growing stronger when enraged and even turning on allies? Aye, the latest dinosaur added to Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] is basically the Hulk as a dinosaur. The survive ‘em up’s latest Early Access update brings the Giganotosaurus, a honking great dino who’ll be a little hostile even if you do manage to tame it, as well as swords and shields for fancier melee. Here, come see how nasty this new dino is:

… [visit site to read more]

ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrt21WitQBc

While greater in size than most large predators, the Giganotosaurus is sometimes less dangerous when encountered in the wild, due to its sluggish speed. Even still, getting trapped or chased down by a Giganotosaurus often means certain death for nearly any creature.

Taming a Giganotosaurus is a dangerous prospect. Its rage reaction, even when tamed, can sometimes cause it to briefly turn on members of its own tribe. Indeed it may even throw off its rider if it has been sufficiently angered! And yet, the sheer size and immense power that the Giganotosaurus possesses means that some factions endeavor to tame it as a fear-inducing "capital" beast of war -- even at great risk!

Fighting a Giganotosaurus directly is always a bad idea, as its rage rapidly grows with every hit it takes. With this rage, it builds increasing reserves of energy to use, making its iron-jawed bites progressively more deadly and enhancing its stamina.

ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrt21WitQBc

While greater in size than most large predators, the Giganotosaurus is sometimes less dangerous when encountered in the wild, due to its sluggish speed. Even still, getting trapped or chased down by a Giganotosaurus often means certain death for nearly any creature.

Taming a Giganotosaurus is a dangerous prospect. Its rage reaction, even when tamed, can sometimes cause it to briefly turn on members of its own tribe. Indeed it may even throw off its rider if it has been sufficiently angered! And yet, the sheer size and immense power that the Giganotosaurus possesses means that some factions endeavor to tame it as a fear-inducing "capital" beast of war -- even at great risk!

Fighting a Giganotosaurus directly is always a bad idea, as its rage rapidly grows with every hit it takes. With this rage, it builds increasing reserves of energy to use, making its iron-jawed bites progressively more deadly and enhancing its stamina.

ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


Dino Dossier

A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, this one is everyone’s favorite ferocious territorial grizzly beast, the Direbear!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


Dino Dossier

A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, this one is everyone’s favorite ferocious territorial grizzly beast, the Direbear!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


SotF Last Stand Championship: Bonus Results & Final Round Announcement!

During the Bonus Round today, there was some speculation about the tribe "Outlaws", specifically the member "Kamikaze Sensei.", and potential 3rd party program use.

Over the course of the tournament, we had several members of staff observing this player and their tribe, recording video footage from several angles, and overall observing gameplay and team movements.

We have composed a video of the most convincing elements of our evidence, which are available for review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eopMquWRTCM

The player has advertised his services as a competitive multiplayer hacker on similar products: http://imgur.com/a/oSKmO

After thoroughly reviewing the footage as well as the gameplay logs and information provided by other players in the game, it is the determination of our GMs and Administrative staff that this evidence of “ESP” usage by ‘Team Outlaws’ Tribe member justifies eliminating Team Outlaws from their 3rd place winners positions in both this tournament match, and in previous The Last Stand Finale Match, where they had come in 2nd place.

As we have said many times, use of third party programs or in-game exploits that leverage an advantage over other teams are grounds for disqualification from these competitive Tournaments and banning from our Official Server Network. As such, Team Outlaws will no longer be allowed to attend further tournaments, and have forfeited their prizes in both games. The teams beneath them in standing will be awarded their prizes and so forth (the team in fourth place in The Last Stand tournament will be awarded third place, etc).

The rankings now sit at:

SoTF: The Last Stand



SoTF: The Last Stand - Bonus Round



While it is always going to be a tense subject, we invite people to review the footage so that there isn't a black-box of accusations in this regard. We always make these calls with much care and deliberation -- we also have made sure that multiple people have seen the footage and given us their feedback before coming to any final decision ourselves, so know that this isn’t just one judge having the final say. We contacted the offending player, and to date have received no video or viable explanations that would make these gameplay actions possible without use of cheat programs.

In the future, not only will we have improved client and server-side anti-cheat measures in place (we've got VAC active with banhammers incoming, and are looking to partner up on server and client-side anti-cheat.), but that players who participate will understand that we are watching carefully, recording footage, and keeping a close eye on what goes on. Furthermore in subsequent Tournaments, indications of cheat usage will involve an immediate summary ban from the session, not an after-the-fact review.

Thank you all for your continued support, and we again extend our congratulations to the winning teams, who played excellently and ferociously!

The Last Stand: Final Round



Due to the events of this round, we are again going to be hosting one more final round for, yes, an ADDITIONAL prize pool! This will take place on Saturday the 7th of November from 1PM EST to 4:30PM EST. This will be a BikeMan-shoutcasted 3.5 Hour SotF Match and all ~240 survivors who took part in the Last Stand Finale or Bonus Round are invited to play again! This special round will feature the following prizes for the top tribes;

1st Place

$12,000 cash
In-Game Golden Custom Trophy with your names

2nd Place

$6,000 cash
In-Game Silver Custom Trophy with your names

3rd Place

$2,400 cash
In-Game Bronze Custom Trophy with your names

Finally, we want to say thank you for everyone’s participation in Survival of the Fittest -- both the players themselves, and also the viewers of these dynamic competitive matches. It’s not always a straight line to keep these high-stakes games free of controversy -- but we give it our best shot, continually improve, and have fun playing the ultimate competitive survival simulator along everyone! We hope to see all the badass contestants back-in-action next Saturday for another high-pressure bout of bloody dino carnage, and until then, Keep on Surviving!

Wildcard Jat and the ARK Survival Evolved Team

P.S. Molnman of Tribe BUMBI sent us this video of a super cool 1v5 kill spree he got in recent SotF game, which we had to share because it’s so impressive -- nice gaming Molnman! :)
http://www.twitch.tv/molnman/v/23245230
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jat


SotF Last Stand Championship: Bonus Results & Final Round Announcement!

During the Bonus Round today, there was some speculation about the tribe "Outlaws", specifically the member "Kamikaze Sensei.", and potential 3rd party program use.

Over the course of the tournament, we had several members of staff observing this player and their tribe, recording video footage from several angles, and overall observing gameplay and team movements.

We have composed a video of the most convincing elements of our evidence, which are available for review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eopMquWRTCM

The player has advertised his services as a competitive multiplayer hacker on similar products: http://imgur.com/a/oSKmO

After thoroughly reviewing the footage as well as the gameplay logs and information provided by other players in the game, it is the determination of our GMs and Administrative staff that this evidence of “ESP” usage by ‘Team Outlaws’ Tribe member justifies eliminating Team Outlaws from their 3rd place winners positions in both this tournament match, and in previous The Last Stand Finale Match, where they had come in 2nd place.

As we have said many times, use of third party programs or in-game exploits that leverage an advantage over other teams are grounds for disqualification from these competitive Tournaments and banning from our Official Server Network. As such, Team Outlaws will no longer be allowed to attend further tournaments, and have forfeited their prizes in both games. The teams beneath them in standing will be awarded their prizes and so forth (the team in fourth place in The Last Stand tournament will be awarded third place, etc).

The rankings now sit at:

SoTF: The Last Stand



SoTF: The Last Stand - Bonus Round



While it is always going to be a tense subject, we invite people to review the footage so that there isn't a black-box of accusations in this regard. We always make these calls with much care and deliberation -- we also have made sure that multiple people have seen the footage and given us their feedback before coming to any final decision ourselves, so know that this isn’t just one judge having the final say. We contacted the offending player, and to date have received no video or viable explanations that would make these gameplay actions possible without use of cheat programs.

In the future, not only will we have improved client and server-side anti-cheat measures in place (we've got VAC active with banhammers incoming, and are looking to partner up on server and client-side anti-cheat.), but that players who participate will understand that we are watching carefully, recording footage, and keeping a close eye on what goes on. Furthermore in subsequent Tournaments, indications of cheat usage will involve an immediate summary ban from the session, not an after-the-fact review.

Thank you all for your continued support, and we again extend our congratulations to the winning teams, who played excellently and ferociously!

The Last Stand: Final Round



Due to the events of this round, we are again going to be hosting one more final round for, yes, an ADDITIONAL prize pool! This will take place on Saturday the 7th of November from 1PM EST to 4:30PM EST. This will be a BikeMan-shoutcasted 3.5 Hour SotF Match and all ~240 survivors who took part in the Last Stand Finale or Bonus Round are invited to play again! This special round will feature the following prizes for the top tribes;

1st Place

$12,000 cash
In-Game Golden Custom Trophy with your names

2nd Place

$6,000 cash
In-Game Silver Custom Trophy with your names

3rd Place

$2,400 cash
In-Game Bronze Custom Trophy with your names

Finally, we want to say thank you for everyone’s participation in Survival of the Fittest -- both the players themselves, and also the viewers of these dynamic competitive matches. It’s not always a straight line to keep these high-stakes games free of controversy -- but we give it our best shot, continually improve, and have fun playing the ultimate competitive survival simulator along everyone! We hope to see all the badass contestants back-in-action next Saturday for another high-pressure bout of bloody dino carnage, and until then, Keep on Surviving!

Wildcard Jat and the ARK Survival Evolved Team

P.S. Molnman of Tribe BUMBI sent us this video of a super cool 1v5 kill spree he got in recent SotF game, which we had to share because it’s so impressive -- nice gaming Molnman! :)
http://www.twitch.tv/molnman/v/23245230
ARK: Survival Evolved

Every game under the sun, and quite a few of them over it, is getting Halloween-themed #content at the moment—but which to write about? Obviously any game featuring skeletal dinosaurs is going to get coverage, which admittedly is limited to Ark: Survival Evolved at present. The prehistoric survival game has been stuffed with yer traditional pumpkins and bats, yer slightly less traditional giant spiders, and with zombie dodos, a giant fire-breathing DodoRex, the aforementioned skelesaurs and more.

Frankly, it's a hugely impressive amount of effort to put into a week-long seasonal event—I'm interested to see what, if anything, the developers have in store for Dino Christmas. Here's the 'Ark: Fear Evolved' trailer showing it all in motion:

For the next week, the days will be shorter, and the nights longer, in Ark, so you won't be getting much respite from the forces of darkness. Here's what you're in for, from the Steam announcement post:

"For the next week the ARK is undergoing a spooky seasonal change where the air is cooler, the days shorter and the nights longer, and a Blood-Moon shines brightly as bats and creepy-crawly creatures of the night appear above ground.

"Survivors should take care when exploring the island as the mythical DodoRex stomps across the land with an army of blood-thirsty zombie dodos in tow, and a variety of re-animated Skelesaurs walk the lands."

The first person to take down a DodoRex on an official PvP server, and present video proof of them doing it, will win a $100 Steam Wallet gift code. (Ta, RPS.)

ARK: Survival Evolved - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

We do post about Ark: Survival Evolved [official site] an awful lot for an Early Access multiplayer sandbox survival game (of which there are oh so many), but that’s mostly because it keeps adding fancy cool things. This post? This is about how its Halloween update has spooky skeletal dinosaurs roaming around, a giant fire-breathing DodoRex to fear, pumpkins to carve, and other eerie additions that are difficult for me to ignore. Look at these cool things:

… [visit site to read more]

...