If you're not hip to the whole Ark scene, here's a quick catch-up: the latest patch to the dino survival game included some pretty drastic changes to flying dinosaurs, and many players aren't too happy about it. In particular, the winged dinos' flying speed was greatly reduced and capped. There were also reductions to stamina and carry weight. Birds got nerfed, in other words.

For example, my own personal Argy—Argentavis, basically an enormous eagle I can ride—had its pre-patch speed leveled up to about 250%, meaning it was a swift beast to get around on. Post-patch, its speed is not only reduced to 100%, but capped there. The big bird, now none-too-fast, won't ever get any faster, even upon leveling it up. (Note: those points I put into speed have been refunded, and I can use them for other attributes.)

This is going to be a real adjustment for me, and all I use my flyers for is transport: many of those who take great pains to breed their birds into powerful super-beasts are now staring glumly at a stable of greatly lessened creatures. Flying dinos are also a major factor on PvP servers (I don't play PvP), so entire tribe wars are going to have to be rethought.

Well, there's a beacon of hope for those of you who are miserable with the nerfs and don't want to wait to see if they get recalculated in your favor (which they probably will, somewhat). The Classic Flyers mod claims to undo the patch completely. Quoth the mod page:

"Brings back the classic flyers we've all known and loved! This mod gives flyer species back all of their pre-nerf'd stats. Yes, that means they can level speed again."

The mod has some instructions you should read before installing, and it sounds like there may be a few bugs here and there: read all about it, and happy flying.

Second update: The patch has been delayed one day, and is now scheduled for Friday, March 31.

Update: Here's a peek at the new menu, via Jeremy Stieglitz on Twitter (you can enlarge the image by clicking the top right corner for a better look):

Original story: I've chosen a picture of one of Ark: Survival Evolved's giant snails for this particular news story. That's because Ark's next patch, v256, will among other things apparently provide a long, long, long overdue 'total inventory menu redesign' according to recently added notes to the Steam discussion post and this tweet from Studio Wildcard's Jeremy Stieglitz:

Seriously, Ark's menus and UI are kind of the pits, and while I understand Early Access provides games in an unfinished state and while I'm sure there were bigger coelacanth to fry during the development process, a redesign of the menu is quite welcome, late as it may be. Hence, the snail. Snails are slow.

For the record, here's a list of what else planned for the update, which is (now) estimated to reach us on Friday, March 31:

• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign
• Total Inventory Menu redesign

Ho ho. 

Just kidding. Here's the real list:

• New Mechanic: Aquatic & Amphibious Creature Breeding
• New Dino: Equus!
• New Dino: Leedsichthys!
• New Dino: Ichthyornis!
• New Dino: Iguanodon!
• New Structures & Mechanic: Tek Underwater Bases
• New Structure: TEK Teleporter
• New Structure: TEK Mosa Saddle
• New Structure: Tek Power Generator
• Total Inventory Menu redesign (other UI's coming soon!)
• Flyer Nerf

Please note: those aren't my exclamation points.

Paid mods was one of 2015's most contentious issues, with Valve and Bethesda abruptly introducing, and just as quickly dissolving, a system in which modders could sell their Skyrim mods to players through the Steam Workshop. While this paid mods system was a failure for a number of reasons, Valve recently stated that it may reintroduce a paid mods system in the future, with Valve's Gabe Newell saying of modders, "...absolutely they need to be compensated."

Studio Wildcard, developer of Early Access dino-survival game Ark: Survival Evolved, is in agreement with Newell's sentiment about modders being paid, and are launching their own program that will allow Ark modders to earn some money. Not by allowing the sale of mods to players, but instead by paying modders directly on a monthly basis to work on and complete their mods.

In a call with Ark's lead designer, lead programmer, and co-creative director Jeremy Stieglitz last Friday, he explained how the new sponsored mod program will work. Each month, Studio Wildcard will select 15 modders and pay them each a stipend of $4,000 to work on their mods. Each month, the mods will be evaluated and it will be determined if those modders will continue to be paid for the next month, or if a mod will be dropped from the program and a new one added. There's also the potential to expand the number of modders being paid this monthly stipend.

"If we have to expand the program because the 15 mods are all doing so well that we don't want to cut any of them," Stieglitz said, "then we'll expand the program to more mods every month.

"The hope is that with this kind of stipend, these authors, who really are hobbyists and have day jobs so they can't really afford to spend as much time as they'd like on modding, that this will let them spend more time on modding, and ideally, hopefully, take some of these mods to completion."

Cedric Burkes of Studio Wildcard, whose own mod, Primitive Plus, was adopted into Ark as official DLC, will be deciding which mods make it into the new sponsored program, and determining each month if the mods will remain sponsored or be dropped and replaced by others. This could change down the line as a community feedback element may be added, which would have some influence on which mods become or remain sponsored.

"Once we get this kind of process going, we're almost certainly going to work out a community-driven aspect to is it as well," said Stieglitz, "where the community maybe even ultimately can vote, along with some discretion, maybe, on Cedric's part on who goes into that voting pool."

Naturally, there's the potential for complications with this type of paid sponsorship. Modders often work in teams, large or small, official or casual, to develop their mods. These teams often collaborate online, sometimes completing a project without ever meeting in person. They also borrow models, skins, textures, code, and ideas from one another, and many mods rely on other mods not just for inspiration but to actually function. While this type of sharing is what makes modding communities great, it sometimes leads to conflicts, infighting, and accusations of theft between modders.

One recent example: two Ark modders clashed over Pokémon mods they were each developing, leading to one modder filing a DMCA notice against the other. And, one of the immediate issues with Valve's failed system was that a modder started selling a mod that used animations from another mod without permission. This mod had to be removed from the paid mod program as a result. I asked Studio Wildcard about these types of complications, and how they planned to resolve issues if or when they arise.

"We ultimately feel that at the end of the day the modders that enter this program are kind of, you might say they're making a commitment, I guess, to handle that, to some extent," said Stieglitz. "When they sign up for this we do have them represent that they have the rights to all the work. They don't have to be closed source, but they have at least open source rights to the work. So, if there's some dispute, technically it's up to the modder to deal with that, at that point."

Considering games, even after launch, continue to receive patches, updates, and new content, and those patches often break or disable mods, I wondered how Studio Wildcard would insure sponsored mods will continue to work even after a modder has completed their work and is no longer part of the sponsored program.

"We don't expect anything of them after that, if they are no longer in the program, or if they quit, they have no obligation to us, it really is no strings attached. We're not looking to run their lives or anything like that," said Stieglitz. "But we do have an insurance policy."

That policy: when entering the sponsored mod program, modders will have to upload their source assets to the Ark devs. So, if the mod needs to be updated in the future to be compatible with a new version of Ark, and the modder is unavailable to do the work (or is uninterested in doing so), the developers at Studio Wildcard will be able to make fixes themselves and push out a patch for the mod.

"We hope to not have to do that," Stieglitz said. "That's kind of a safety net."

The official announcement from Studio Wildcard about this new sponsored mod program will take place this week at GDC. That same day a small update to Ark will be applied that adds a menu to the game allowing players to access the list of the current month's sponsored mods and easily download them. We'll update our story once Studio Wildcard has made their announcement and the patch arrives.

"Really," said Stieglitz of the sponsored mod program, "this speaks more generally to something that I think is kind of lacking in the industry which is a midway point between hobbyist modders, who are just really dabbling, and professional game developers."

Below is a list of the initial 15 modders who have been selected for the sponsored mod program. You can visit the official sponsored mods site here.

NPC Bush People by SwordsScorched Earth Decor, RP Decor, eco In Wonderland, and ecoTrees by ecoRagnarok by Excited KangarooStructures Plus, Platforms Anywhere, Platforms Plus by orionsunSteampunk Mod by iSpeZzRoraima by JeffCastles, Keeps, and Forts Architecture by enc | ExileAcidSurvival Plus by TaoArk Moon Survival by DavidBCShigo Islands by ExilogUploaderMadagascar Evolved by Hey my team rules!Thieves Island and Skies of Nazca by Tkat5200MRRadTools.Inc by MRRadioactivArk Postal Service and Offline Raid Protection by jslayAdvanced Admin Command Menu by Woeful Macabre

When I woke up naked on a beach on one of Ark: Survival Evolved's largest roleplaying servers, I had no idea what to expect. Being drugged and forced to sing karaoke, however, was at the bottom of my list. But that's just life on TwitchRP, an island of oddball characters where one minute you are doing cannonballs into a pool and the next you're charging forward on a sheep in a jousting tournament. Roleplaying in Ark is bizarre, hilarious, and unexpectedly liberating. It's also the most fun I've had in a multiplayer game in ages.

Last night, I streamed my journey into Ark roleplaying. I became Lazarus Astros, a man stranded on the island with only the hazy memory of a woman's face. My first 20 minutes were spent trying to survive in the darkness as raptors nipped at my heels, but then I ran into another player who whisked me away to safety. Moments later, I was drinking mojitos in a beachfront bar talking to some of the strangest characters I've ever met in an online game.

If you want to watch the full stream, you can find the three parts here.

(A note about the Twitch videos: other characters can only hear me when the microphone icon is displayed in the top-right corner. Otherwise my conversation is only with the viewers on Twitch.) 

Motley Crew 

Looking back, I was fortunate to meet Joeskie and Evie—two of the more sober players—right away. Their kindness and relatable personalities helped ground my whole experience. They gave me food, drinks, a pteranodon, and a job as a bartender at the Twin Cove bar—a gorgeous waterfront watering hole guarded by a lingerie-wearing gorilla named Candy.

Then I met the island's more eccentric characters. Roxas, whose absurdly toned chest was only outmatched by two massive locks of hair that protruded from his scalp like insect antennae. Dotty, who gave me a sexy coat of body-paint made to look like lingerie to celebrate Valentine's Day. And then there was Emilene, who I can only describe as the more endearing form of crazy—like Harley Quinn from Batman minus all the promiscuity.

Ark is home to hundreds of roleplaying servers, each one with their own flavor. Some, like Seven Kingdoms Roleplaying, are serious about roleplaying characters appropriate for their world. TwitchRP, however, is more loose in its restrictions. Despite what the daunting list of rules I had to read before joining the server led me to believe, characters are free to be who they want as long as they don't break the golden rule: Always be in-character. That freedom gives the roleplaying on TwitchRP the kinetic energy of a live improv performance. There's a constant air of comedy to everyone's interactions, which also helps contextualize some of Ark's absurd designs like everyone frequently pooping on the floor.

There's rarely a dull moment on the server. Emilene had a slightly unsettling game she played called "Party Time" where she'd throw a gas grenade into a crowd of people. Those who didn't run away fast enough were knocked out and completely helpless as she messed with their inventory or dragged their bodies so that they woke up in strange places. It's a bit creepy. The whole time, she'd giggle like an absolute maniac.

My second game of Party Time did not go well. When Em lobbed her grenade, I was behind the bar serving drinks and couldn't get away. With my screen blacked out and the sounds of giggling flooding my headphones, I didn't know what was happening. And then, like some kind of high school nightmare, I woke up on stage in front of an audience of over a dozen.

"Karaoke!" They shouted. "Sing!"

Too afraid to sing and too afraid to be the poor sport who refuses, I desperately tried to think of a song I knew some of the words to. I'll never forgive my brain for betraying me in that instant because the only song that I could think of was Celine fucking Dione's "My Heart Will Go On." 

Barely stumbling through an entire verse, I forgot the lyrics and roleplayed having to vomit into the ocean from performance anxiety. Seconds later, a topless man wearing a tophat told me to follow him and took me to a wall with a picture of me—naked except for my lingerie body paint—standing on the stage. One hour on this server and I was already immortalized on the wall like a rowdy college bar's "Wall of Shame."

I was feeling genuinely embarrassed and flustered, and then Em took the stage and sang her heart out to Peter Schilling's "Major Tom." I was floored. Being forced to sing karaoke wasn't a cruel joke, but a lighthearted initiation to bring me into the fold. As another player, Skippy, took the stage to crush an incredible rendition of Spice Girls' "If You Wanna Be My Lover," it was bemusing to realize that a group of internet strangers had gathered in a virtual bar to sing into their headsets. And yet, just like all of my experiences at real karaoke bars, I was having a great time.

The winds of change 

Karaoke wasn't the only crazy thing that happened that night. After someone took a stab at "We Will Rock You" everyone hopped on a party boat and set sail to a nearby resort for a pool party. There, Em Party Time'd everyone, Kohi lamented about her dead wife, and Jeff—who is apparently super cool—taught me how to jack my pectorals by doing pushups while thinking about all my ex-girlfriends.

There were quieter moments too. Later in the evening, Joeskie and Evie took me on a tour of the island's community center, a neutral ground for tribes to meet during times of war (though I can't imagine war ever sprouting up on an island this laid back). They took me to a library where players left messages and poems on a bookshelf, and slowly the droplets of lore that exist on TwitchRP began to condense.

Every five or six weeks, the server is wiped and players must start over fresh on a new map. Inside of TwitchRP players refer to these apocalypses as "the storms." I asked Joeskie what will happen to the library and the books that players have stored in it. "Sometimes people will transfer their stories over. You know, rewrite them," he said with that hopeful tone a parent might use to tell a child that their dead relative is watching over them.

Joeskie and Evie then took me back to Twin Cove to show me the rest of the facilities that include a jousting arena, breeding hall, the bar where we did karaoke, and even a battle arena. The arena is particularly impressive, with stone pillars and ramps that create obstacles between contenders. Suspended above it is a glass floor where viewers get an eagle eye view of the action below.

Looking at all of these amazing projects, I realized they must've taken weeks to build. Rumors on the island suggested a new storm might be coming soon—but no player will know until after it happens as the exact day is kept a secret. I felt a bit sad at the thought of all of this disappearing in a week or so.

"Eh, it gives us something to do," Joeskie said. And I realized that, sad as it is, pushing the reset button is needed to keep life on the island feeling fresh. By making everyone a mortal, TwitchRP has also given them a purpose.  

You don't have to put on the red light 

As the night continued, the group eventually ended up at Skybar, a brand new club that only just opened. Almost entirely made of glass, it was easily the swankiest place I'd seen on the island. It's only fitting I met Allison there—perhaps my favorite character on all of TwitchRP. Though she never said it directly, insinuations made by the rest of the group led me to believe she was stripper. Of course, her painted on bow tie, bikini, and luscious red hair didn't exactly dispel the image either.

But that's not what I enjoyed about her—I swear. One thing that separates roleplaying in Ark from online roleplaying I've done in the past is the necessity to use your voice. It's easy to build a personality when you're typing it out, but acting over Ark's built-in voice communication is another thing entirely. Allison blew me away with her ditzy valley girl persona and constant remarks of "how wasted" she was. She stood out among the mishmash of wacky personalities on that quality alone.

Settling into the conversations at the bar, I overheard Allison asking another character who of us is single. When "the bartender" came up, I got a bit excited. I mean, it was Valentine's Day after all. I've already sang karaoke—hell yes I'll go on a roleplay date.

Allison asked me if I want to check out a distant tower and I immediately saw my opening. Two strangers alone, looking out at the vast majesty of the island on Valentine's Day? Bingo. Discouraged to find the tower locked, we wandered over to a nearby home and bumped into its owner, Zeke, who happened to have the keys to the tower. He accompanied us to the top, and I fretted that this third wheel would ruin my chance to find Jurassic love. Turns out Zeke wouldn't be the one to ruin the date.

On the parapet of the tower, Allison asked Zeke a very suggestive question. Just as he began to answer, she disappeared. "Did she just fall off?" I asked Zeke. Hundreds of feet below I saw a smudge of red hair splayed on the sand.

My date, the stripper, just fell to her death.

Zeke and I parachuted down to confirm the worst. Allison's lifeless body was frozen in a falling animation, but she was certainly dead. I grabbed her items off of her body so they wouldn't disappear when she despawned and asked Zeke if we should say some words. Just as I was about to finish, the rest of the gang arrived.

"Oh my god what did you do to Allison? You monster," Kohi said to me.

"Allison fell off the tower and died," I tried to explain.

"A likely story," she shot back. And just like that, I was in the prime suspect in a suspicious death. 

I was able to explain the story well enough and Zeke backed me up to the point where I think the group was willing to drop any charges they laid against me. Eventually we decided the best course of action was to drag her body in the sea and forget the whole thing.

As Allison's corpse sank, so too did my chance at finding love. 

The kindness of strangers 

Of all the feelings I experienced, what struck me the most was how welcoming the eccentric locals of TwitchRP could be. I've lamented about toxic online communities before, and still I struggle with feeling like a valued member of my World of Warcraft guild, but I felt continually amazed at the generosity and kindness shown to me as a stranger that night. I was one of the gang, even if I didn't realize it.

During one of Em's Party Times, I regained consciousness to find Evie standing over me. "Why are you always next to me when I wake up?" I snidely accused her.

Joeskie stepped in to explain: "If someone gets knocked out in our family we make sure no one goes through their pockets," he said. I felt a sting of regret—she was only trying to protect me.

That wouldn't be the only time I'd accidentally mistreat my tribe, either. Back at Twin Cove, I was trying to whistle at my bird to follow me. Instead I used the whistle that applies to every dinosaur in our tribe. Screen shaking with their steps, I watched in horror as a parade of gigantic dinosaurs broke free from their pastures and lumbered toward me.

Evie and Joeskie had to take them back one by one and place them back inside their designated spots. Despite apologizing profusely, both insisted it wasn't a problem and cheerfully hinted to watch what whistle I used to call animals.And then it happened again.

To be fair, it was a different whistle this time but the effect was the same. 20 or so dinosaurs came stampeding out of the houses and stables they were stored in. This time, wracked with shame, I ran away and tried to hide. Joeskie found me and asked if I had been messing with the animals again. I genuinely expected him to be upset. Instead, he helped me find the dinosaur I was trying to call and told me how to do it without also drawing every other beast nearby. Despite screwing up twice, he was kind and understanding.

Patience like that feels like a rare thing in online games these days. It's so easy to get wrapped up in winning that match or gaining that next level, we can sometimes lose sight of the people on the other end of that connection. But while roleplaying in Ark, I was always acutely aware that those around me were—despite the absurdity of the characters they played—people. In a post-chatroom internet, having a genuinely great time with a group of strangers feels exceedingly rare, but TwitchRP has inherited that spirit of the early internet.

I came to the island expecting that at the end of the evening I would never return. But now that I have a bedroom with my name engraved above the door and a tribe waiting for me, I think I'll stick around.