Aug 14, 2018
New Extinction Teasers!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jen
Happy Patch Day, Survivors! It's Tuesday and ARK's latest update is going live just as this announcement is being posted.

In celebration of the patch today we're sharing what we have been working on: some brand new previews of our upcoming expansion pack ARK: Extinction. Check out the images below for a sneak peak at what you can expect to see on planet Earth!



In Extinction, Earth has become an Element-infested planet filled with fantastical creatures both organic and technological. Element has ravaged the planet and corrupted both the landscape and some of its inhabitants, causing mutations in the creatures and plants that can be found there.



We look forward to sharing more in the months ahead as we work towards our Extinction release!

Our Extinction Chronicles III event is going on right now, including new Corrupted skin, Explorer Notes, and Tek dinos. You can read all about it in yesterdays Community Crunch announcement:

https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791438250696/announcements/detail/1700558821202964860
Aug 13, 2018
Extinction Chronicles III Begins Tomorrow!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jen
Extinction Chronicles II!



Tomorrow there will be a client and server side update that will bring Extinction Chronicles III to survivors on PC, Xbox, and PS4! 

Leading up to the release of Extinction there will be monthly drops of Extinction-related Explorer Notes on The Island, Scorched Earth, and Aberration. Once collected these notes will unlock new Extinction-related skins! 



There will also be the appearance of more powerful Tek-themed Dinosaur variants within the ARKs each month. These Tek Dinos are permanent additions (meaning they will continue to spawn even after the event is over), with a new one beginning to appear each month. In Extinction Chronicles I we released three Explorer Notes, the Corrupted Helmet and the Tek Rex. In Extinction Chronicles II we released three Explorer Notes, the Corrupted Boots and the Tek Stego.



And now, tomorrow we're excited to bring you three new Explorer Notes, the Corrupted Pants and a new Tek creature, the Tek Raptor!



In addition, special colored dinos will be populating the ARKs. You'll be able to find creatures sporting red, black, white, and grey for the next month beginning tomorrow. Be sure to take advantage of these special colors before they're extinct!

Patch Notes!

Here are the full fixes and notes coming in tomorrows Extinction Chronicles III update.

Extinction Chronicles III:
- Added Tek Raptor
* New breeding line
* 5% chance to spawns
* 20% higher base level
            - Added new color set (red, black, white, grey)
            - Added 3 new Explorer Notes and matching unlock (Corrupted Pants)
            - Increased maximum player level by 1
Connectivity:
            - Added time out to clients who aren't responding
Aberration Balance:
            - Increased Plant-Z range by 300%
            - Enabled Tek Teleporter on Aberration
Scorched Balance:
            - Crop plots can now be grown where you'd expect (no more sunlight issues)

ARK Digest Making A Return!

Just a quick reminder that the ARK Digest will be making a come back! Our goal is to bring the Digest back about once a month with the first being on August 20th.

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 This Thursday!



This Thursday August 16th the community team will be doing another biweekly livestream!

During these livestreams Zen Rowe, Chris, and Jen bring you ARK news, celebrate modding, and the community as a whole every other week. We mix it up between playing ARK, showing off mods, and showing off your community creations for all to see. Survivors are invited to join us in the chat (and sometimes even in-game) to play and talk with the community team.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391754339
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 16th! We hope to see you there :)

Mod Community Updates!

Good day everybody! Zen here with some reminders.

I know the devkit update hasn't hit the epic launcher yet, however the devkit update that includes TLC 2 content is available for manual install.
So in case that information never crossed your path, you can get it from here:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/modding/ark-survival-evolved/62293-6-21-ark-dev-kit-v280-0-is-now-on-google-drive

The tutorial bounty board is starting to look pretty popular, I've already received a few submissions for things like map optimizations and chat commands, so you can look forward to a couple tutorials on that subject at the beginning of next month. If you are interested in helping make tutorials, please check out the board each month to see what bounties are available, they do have cash awards attached to them. If you are looking for some tutorials on topics for yourself but there aren't any bounties for it, you will find a form on the same page to submit a bounty request.

This system is designed to be driven by community needs but I do need your help to know what those needs are, whether it be adding new request topics or voting on existing requests to be made into bounties.

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/345036-modding-tutorial-bounty-board/

ARK: Evolution Event!



Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 17th of August at 1 PM EST until Monday the 20th 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 please get in touch and be sure to follow us on:

Community Hub: www.survivetheark.com
Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark
Jul 30, 2018
Mysterious Mysteries: Introducing ???????
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jen
Mysterious Mysteries: Introducing ???????



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

Code of Conduct Changes!

The Enforcement Team are back again with another important notice regarding the Code of Conduct. We'd like to make Official Players aware of the following 2 revisions:

Revision

Hacking and Exploiting

- Using cliff platforms to prevent tribes from building in their own bases
- Floating structures or structures that extend past normal building limits on platform saddles or rafts for PVP purposes

Be aware of and respect the rules of the Official Server Code of Conduct, which you can read in it's full form here:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/code-of-conduct/

Community Livestream #5 This Thursday!



This Thursday August 2nd the community team will be doing another biweekly livestream!

During these livestreams Zen Rowe, Chris, and Jen bring you ARK news, celebrate modding, and the community as a whole every other week. We mix it up between playing ARK, showing off mods, and showing off your community creations for all to see. Survivors are invited to join us in the chat (and sometimes even in-game) to play and talk with the community team.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391754339
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 2nd! We hope to see you there :)

ARK: Evolution Event!



Survivors will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 3rd of August at 1 PM EST until Monday the 6th 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 please get in touch and be sure to follow us on:

Community Hub: www.survivetheark.com
Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark
Jul 22, 2018
Valve issues 95,000 bans in just seven days
Team Fortress 2

Valve has stepped up its anti-cheat measures and issued almost 95,000 bans in the last week alone.

In July 2017, we reported that on 6th July Valve banned over 40K Steam accounts for cheating, making it the single largest banhammer the company had ever deployed.

Emphasis on "had", though.

Read more…

Jul 19, 2018
What it's like being a low-level streamer
ARK: Survival Evolved

Streaming video games is big business for some. Tyler "Ninja" Blevins reportedly makes $500,000 a month playing Fortnite on Twitch. But for the vast majority of streamers, barely anyone's watching, and precious few are paying. For the vast majority, streaming is a hobby. For others, it's the hope of something bigger - a bigger audience, perhaps, more views, more comments and, of course, more money.

So, what's it like being a low-level streamer hoping to hit the big time? How does committing to at least trying to make something out of streaming affect your life, your relationships, your day to day? For 29 year-old Admiral Peach, an Ark fan whose streams get around 20-something concurrent viewers, it's a juggling act. She streamed for 93 hours in the 30 days up to mid July 2018, but she also has a part-time job and a relationship. There's a lot going on. This is her story.

You might expect a streamer to have played games their whole life. This isn't the case for Admiral Peach. Though she's now based in Oxfordshire, she's made a few moves over the years, from her birthplace in India, to County Westmeath in Ireland when she was seven. Like many of us, she developed her love of gaming while growing up, but it wasn't from an early age. She remembers looking on enviously for years as her friends got consoles. Eventually, she managed to convince her parents to buy a PlayStation One and the fire was lit.

Read more…

Jul 16, 2018
Extinction Chronicles II, & ARKaeology Ending Tomorrow!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jen
Extinction Chronicles II!



Tomorrow there will be a client and server side update that will bring Extinction Chronicles II to survivors on PC, Xbox, and PS4.

Leading up to the release of Extinction there will be monthly drops of Extinction-related Explorer Notes on The Island, Scorched Earth, and Aberration. Once collected these notes will unlock new Extinction-related skins!



There will also be the appearance of more powerful Tek-themed Dinosaur variants within the ARKs each month. These Tek Dinos are permanent additions (meaning they will continue to spawn even after the event is over), with a new one beginning to appear each month. In Extinction Chronicles I we released three Explorer Notes, the Corrupted Helmet and the Tek Rex. Tomorrow we're excited to bring you three new Explorer Notes, the Corrupted Boots and a new Tek creature, the Tek Stego!



In addition, special colored dinos will be populating the ARKs. You'll be able to find creatures sporting purple, black, grey, and dark blue for the next week beginning tomorrow. Be sure to take advantage of these special colors before they're extinct!

Patch Notes!

Here are the full fixes and notes coming in tomorrows Extinction Chronicles update.

Extinction Chronicles
- Increased Player and Dino Level Cap by 1
- Added 3 new Explorer Notes
- Added Corrupted Boots unlockable
- Fixed Corrupted Helmet colorization
- Tek Stego (with new breeding line, 5% chance to spawns, 20% higher base level)
- Be on the lookout for Purple, Blue, Black, and Grey dinos for the next week!

Addressed map exploit

The Center bosses now yield more Element (30, 83, and 184 for Easy, Medium and Hard respectively)

Scorched Earth
- Electric Storm only affects tek weapons, tek turrets, tek saddles, and tek shield generators
- Electric Storm duration bumped to 8 minutes

General
- Riot shield can now be crafted from the fabricator
- Crop plots now correctly grow when out range

Added admin commands
- RainDinos
- RainDanger
- RefillStats
- GiveArmorSet
- GiveWeaponSet
- GiveItemSet
- ClearMyBuffs

ARKaeology Event Ends Tomorrow!



There is currently an event going on in the world of ARK: ARKaeology! The event will end on Official Servers on July 17th. Collect bones from fossil mounds and craft them into 4 new skins and returning skeleton costumes.

During this event all wild dinos have a chance to spawn with additional mutation colors: White, Yellow, Grey, and Black. There is also the mighty Tek Rex which you can find and tame, if you can handle it!

Be sure to take advantage of the last day of this event before it's over!

ARK: Evolution Event - Fourth of July!



Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 20th of July at 1 PM EST until Monday the 23rd of July 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 please get in touch and be sure to follow us on:

Community Hub: www.survivetheark.com
Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark
Jul 9, 2018
What graphics card do I need for HDR and what PC games support it?
HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Graphics card HDR header

HDR on PC is a bit of a mess, but provided you haven’t been put off by Windows 10’s hazy support for it or the astronomical prices of the best gaming monitors for HDR, then the next step on your path to high dynamic range glory is to get a graphics card that actually supports it. Below, you’ll find a complete list of all the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that have built-in support for HDR, as well as everything you need to know about getting one that also supports Nvidia and AMD’s own HDR standards, G-Sync HDR and FreeSync 2.

We’ve also put together a list of all the PC games that support HDR as well. There aren’t many of them, all told, but we’ll be updating this list with more titles as and when they come out so it’s always up to date.

(more…)

Jul 9, 2018
Steam Charts: Perfectly Normal Edition
Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Nothing strange here.

Welcome to my nightmares. As chronicled last week, all human progress is wiped out by a Steam Sale. Where once we were a species that revelled in new, interesting ideas, pursuing our dreams, we are once more wedged neck-deep in the past, doomed to buy the same 40 five-year-old games until we rot and coagulate into a molten horror. Welcome to the Steam Charts! (more…)

Jul 6, 2018
The 100 best-selling games on Steam in 2018 so far
Dota 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

biggest-steam-games-2018

We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

Jul 2, 2018
Mysterious Mysteries: Introducing ???????, Fourth of July 2x Breeding, New Bug Reporting System, & Small Tribes Clusters Coming!
ARK: Survival Evolved - Jen
Mysterious Mysteries: Introducing ???????



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

New Bug Reporting System!

We are excited to bring to you a beta of our new bug submission process! By visiting the link below you will be brought to a bug submission page where you can send an issue you're experiencing in-game to our team.

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/pc-bug-reports/

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429701700
We hope that this new submission process will help us collect information and streamline the process. It is important to read and fill out the form correctly with as much information as possible in order for us to quickly and efficiently address issues. Videos and pictures with exact steps on how to reproduce an issue will help us do that.

- If you are in need of a GM's assistance in-game you will still use the Customer Support ticket system.
- If you want to report abuse/rule breaking happening on your official server, please use the Incident Report system instead.

Upcoming Maintenance - Small Tribes Servers!

After reading feedback about our Small Tribes players one of the concerns we've seen is transfers. While we don't want to disable them all together, we've made the decision to cluster off the Small tribes servers. This means that each server will be on a separate transfer group from the others, with 8-10 other servers and each of the maps represented in each cluster.

In the future these Small Tribes servers will be added into new clusters as to prevent already existing and established tribes from transferring into them immediately when they are released.

This process will take place on July 16th at 1pm EST. Tribes with multiple bases on multiple servers are advised to be aware of which servers they will have access to and move their bases accordingly so that they are all within the same cluster. It is important to also note that anything saved into your cloud MUST be downloaded prior to the servers being taken offline. Anything that is uploaded will be deleted during the clustering process.

* indicates new servers that will be added between 1-2pm EST tomorrow to fill out the separated clusters.

EU-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes5
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes4
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes17
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes23
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes6
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes18
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes36
*EU-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes49

EU-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes22
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes10
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes19
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes29
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes11
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes21
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes38
*EU-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes51

EU-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes28
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes16
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes34
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes35
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes12
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes24
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes47
*EU-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes50

NA-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes25
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes7
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes13
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes2
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes1
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes14
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes41
*NA-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes54

NA-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes42
NA-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes3
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes9
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes27
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes26
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes8
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes48
*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes55

EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes37
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes33
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes32
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes39
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes45
EU-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes20
*EU-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes53

NA-PVP-Official-Aberration-SmallTribes31
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes46
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes40
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter-SmallTribes44
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes15
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland-SmallTribes30
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok-SmallTribes43
*NA-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth-SmallTribes52

Upcoming Maintenance - Fresh Servers Joining Main Cluster!

On July 3rd the first set of Fresh Servers that were released will be joining the main cluster as the 60 period has expired. This will happen during our 1pm EST deployment.

*FRESH*EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland395
*FRESH*EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter396
*FRESH*EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok397
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland398
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland399
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok400
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland401
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter402
*FRESH*EU-PVP-Official-Aberration403
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland404
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland405
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-TheCenter406
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland407
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-Ragnarok408
*FRESH*NA-PVE-Official-Aberration409
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland410
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland411
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter412
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland413
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland414
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter415
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland416
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter417
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok418
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland419
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok420
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-ScorchedEarth421
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland422
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok423
*FRESH*NA-PVP-Official-Aberration424

Community Livestream #5 This Thursday!



This Thursday July 5th the community team will be doing another biweekly livestream!

During these livestreams Zen Rowe, Chris, and Jen bring you ARK news, celebrate modding, and the community as a whole every other week. We mix it up between playing ARK, showing off mods, and showing off your community creations for all to see. Survivors are invited to join us in the chat (and sometimes even in-game) to play and talk with the community team.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391754339
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, July the 5th! We hope to see you there :)

Salien!



The Steam Intergalactic Summer Sale is here! Until July 4th you can collect an ARK-themed outfit for your Salien when participating in the sale, or by playing the Summer Saliens Game to win free games!

http://steamcommunity.com/saliengame/play

ARK'S BIGGEST SALE!

ARK and its expansion packs are currently on sale across all platforms at their lowest prices ever! Check out the image and links below for more details!



ARK: Evolution Event - Fourth of July!



Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this Fourth of July! It will be active from Tuesday the 3rd of July at 2 PM EST until Thursday the 5th of July at 2 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

2x Maturation Rates
2x Mating Rates
2x Egg Hatching Rates

And also...

Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 6th of July at 1 PM EST until Monday the 9th of July 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 please get in touch and be sure to follow us on:

Community Hub: www.survivetheark.com
Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark
...