Apr 27, 2020

Community Crunch 223: Genesis Transfers & On The Horizon

ARK: Survival Evolved - Jatheish

Greetings Survivors!

In this edition of the Community Crunch, we’ll cover the details of opening Genesis Transfers on our Official Networks, the Dupe Protection System, Meshing detection, Third-party software, hardware upgrades for our servers, player dedicated servers for console, Mac, Linux, and we’ll touch on what we’ve been working on recently along with an overview of our focuses over the coming weeks.

Before we dive into that, we’ll take a brief pause to acknowledge these unprecedented times for all of us - our team, our players, our families, and yours - things are tough right now and we could all use some support and camaraderie. Now, more than ever, activities like gaming allow us to stay connected and engaged with our community, particularly for those of us practicing social distancing, often in isolation. As a small gesture of appreciation for our extended ARK family, we will be continuing to run 2x rates for the foreseeable future. As we continue navigating our way through these extraordinary and challenging times together, our heartfelt thoughts are with all of you. Stay safe Survivors!

Genesis & New Official Servers Transfers

We’ll be opening full transfer of items and dinos into Genesis on May 15th, 2020 with two notes. The first note is that Extinction Titans will be restricted from transferring and the second is that Managarmr will be marked as unrideable. In the case of the latter, this decision was made in relation to their close-to-flyer status and their ability to dash through certain missions. We have opted to allow Gigas as they serve as a counter to tanking dinos, and Rockdrakes, as they bring some utility whilst being less mobile than Manas.

New Server Transfers

These were the latest servers added in tandem with our free weekend. Similarly to Genesis One servers, on May the 15th, they’ll also have their transfers enabled:

EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland705
EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter706
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland707
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter708
EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok709
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok710
EU-PVP-Official-Valguero711
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland712
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero713
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter714
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok715
EU-PVP-Official-Valguero716
NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland717
NA-PVE-Official-TheCenter718
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland719
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter720
NA-PVE-Official-Ragnarok721
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok722
NA-PVP-Official-Valguero723
NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland724
NA-PVE-Official-Valguero725
NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter726
NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok727
NA-PVP-Official-Valguero728

Server Upgrades

We’ve also been recently working on upgrading the last of our servers to new hardware. A lot has already taken place across all platforms, these were our most recent that took place over the last week:

EU-PVE-Official-Aberration222
NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland339
NA-PVE-Official-Extinction502
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero526
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland198
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland43
EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok189
EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok397
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer262 (on Nitrado)
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland333
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland343
EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter349
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer272 (on Nitrado)
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland346
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland347
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland344
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland395
EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter396
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer263 (on Nitrado)
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero523
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero525
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer265 (on Nitrado)
LEGACY-EU-PVE-TheCenter633
EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok389
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-Isolated-Ragnarok60
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland78
EU-PVE-Official-GenOne661
EU-PVE-Official-GenOne662
EU-PVE-Official-GenOne663
LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-Ragnarok59
EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland705
EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter706
EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland707
EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter708
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero518
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero519
OC-PVE-Official-Ragnarok208
NA-PVE-Official-Ragnarok383
EU-PVE-Official-Valguero516

Mac & Linux

Late last week we were able to push out fixes for both the Mac and Linux versions of the game, which should allow those clients to play on the latest servers, with all the latest content. We appreciate your patience and will be working on improving our pipeline to get these out to you in a quicker and more stable state.

Live Game

Over the past couple of months, we’ve shifted our primary focus for our regular patches between balance/quality of life and bugs/exploits. The past few weeks have been primarily dedicated to bugs and exploits in this regard. We’ve also been working on various crash fixes. We plan to pivot back to further balance and QoL improvements soon, including a pass on breeding to improve player’s experience and further tweaks to mission rewards and crates on Genesis.

Anti-Cheat & Exploit Measures

The last time we spoke about our efforts to combat cheaters, we unveiled our work on our Anti-Meshing systems which focused on detection and prevention. After rolling out the system entirely, we saw a 90% reduction in overall meshing cases across the board. Since then, we've continued the fight against the various ways that underhanded survivors try to cheat on the ARK, and we'd like to give you an update on that fight.

Meshing

Our Anti-meshing Detection System is proving effective and we’re continuing to see a vast decline in incidents. Like all exploits/cheats, this is an ongoing battle and here's our latest progress:

As you can see the battle against meshers is not over, but cases remain low and will continue to decrease over time. Some of the additional changes we've been working on have included:

Improvements to the Anti Meshing detection system. This has involved being able to detect meshing in new areas of the map, as well as eliminating false positives and refining the system where edge cases could slip through.
Level Design changes across all maps which focused on filling in holes and ensuring that collision has been set correctly to prevent players from entering unintended playable areas of the map
Tackling mesh-methods head on to prevent players from being able to get into the mesh in the first place
Initial rollout of the Anti Mesh Biting solution on all platforms, to prevent creatures from attacking through the mesh. Still early days so far, but a lot of the primary methods of mesh biting have been eliminated and we’ll be continuing to monitor for new methods and reports to squash them too!

We really appreciate and want to thank the ARK community for the reports and support, as the information provided helped us to improve the system overall. Keep it coming guys! <3

Duping

Similarly to meshing, this has been another hot topic that has plagued the game. In one of our most recent updates, we were able to release a system to identify duped items (in some cases retroactively), as well as prevent many instances of duping from occurring in the first place. It's still early days, but so far the results have been outstanding, as we're sure some of you have seen. The system is still being monitored by our team and we'll continue to iterate on improvements where possible whilst having our enforcement team dish out harsher punishments.

Exploits & Bugs

Fixing bugs and exploits has been the main focus of our most recent patches. We’d intended to push out some patches focusing on balance but they were put on hold whilst we address what we consider to be more pressing issues.

Examples exploits we’ve fixed recently include:

Fixed an exploit with the Rock Drake
Fixed an exploit that allowed mission creatures to be used in unintended ways
Fixed an exploit which allowed certain creatures to attack structures through walls
Additional server-side protection against exploits
Fixed an exploit with turrets and ziplines
Fixed an exploit with meshing and the cruise missile
Fixed an exploit that allowed you to get under the map.
Fixed a mounting exploit with Magamasaur

And there’s definitely more if you go through the rest of the patch notes, as well as a whole host of bug fixes!

We know that the patch notes regarding exploits aren’t super detailed. We typically just reference the object surrounding the exploit and that is because we prefer to hold these cards close to our chest, especially to prevent these methods from being exploited on unpatched Unofficial servers.

Player Reports

We recognize that some of the auto-responses on tickets could be worded in a more precise manner so as to mitigate confusion and we’ll be working with our GM’s to update them. Something we’d like to clarify is that an auto-response with the ticket being closed does not denote that the case isn’t being investigated. It means one of the following:

enforcement action has taken place
an investigation is ongoing
no further information from the reporter is required.

Our enforcement team (GM’s) does not disclose the outcome of player reports for player privacy reasons but rest assured that if a reported player or tribe is found in violation of the Code of Conduct, the enforcement team will be taking the necessary action against them.

For those wanting to report a player for breaking the code of conduct on an Official Server, it can be done so here.

Third-Party Software (Aimbot/ESP etc)

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a spike in our CCUs across the platforms, which usually leads to a spike in cheaters too. In particular, on PC and Crossplay servers, we’ve witnessed a rise in aimbot reports and the team has been working hard with our partners to combat the use of third party software.

For some additional insight into the cycle of fighting against aimbots, this is usually what happens: We notice an increase in the number of aimbot reports, we work with our anti-cheat partners to identify and detect the new software and once that has been done, we’ll issue a ban wave and punish cheaters accordingly. Following this, we’ll see a slight dip in the frequency of aimbot reports on our Official Networks, until either new software is released or older software has been updated, and then we repeat the process again of identification, detection, and punishment. This cycle can be as long as a few weeks, or as short as a few days. It’s a constant cat and mouse and our team is working diligently with BattlEye in order to detect new third party software and keep our officials as safe from cheaters as possible. In addition to that, we have also ramped up our enforcement measures, including, not only player bans but full wipes of tribes associated.

In regards to Crossplay specifically, we’ve recently implemented and improved our systems & heuristics to identify those using malicious third party software and it is proving effective. Over the past week, our enforcement team has wiped multiple tribes and banned a large number of players on our Crossplay servers with more to come very soon. We’ll continue to enforce hard against these cheaters.

Eggcellent Painting Contest

As a reminder, the Eggcellent Painting contest is ongoing. There will be two competitions with a prize for the winner of $100!

In-Game Painting
Real-life Egg Painting

The entries will be judged by our community team. Submissions are limited to three eggs per survivor, so choose your best egg. You'll have the month of April to enter, with April 30th being the final day to enter. Submit your images in the comments below, and we look forward to seeing your creativity!

Click here for more details and enter your painting for a chance to win

On The Horizon

Along with continuing to squash bugs, improve performance, and address any exploits that may arise, we will be working on planned balance and QoL for the Live Game. Some of the team are busy working on the upcoming Crystal Isles map and a unique new creature. We’re excited to release Crystal Isles on our Official Networks in the not too distant future!

Steam Sale: Explorers Edition (75% Off)

Want to introduce your friends to the world of ARK? Right now, the ARK: Survival Evolved Explorer's Edition Bundle is available for 75% off on Steam! The Explorer's Edition gives you access to the base game as well as the Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction Expansion Packs.

Go grab your copy now!

Evo Event

As mentioned above, we've enabled 2x XP, taming, breeding, and harvest. We'll continue to run these rates for the time being as a gesture towards our community as we all deal with the isolation and stress during these tough times.

That’s about it for this Community Crunch. Stay safe and take care!

Studio Wildcard

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
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Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

Apr 6, 2020

Community Crunch 222

ARK: Survival Evolved - complexminded

Patch Notes Round-Up

Much has happened since our last edition of the Patch Notes Round-Up. Since then, we've launched Genesis: Part 1 and introduced several improvements and bug fixes that have been circulating in the community. With close to 300 improvements, changes, and tweaks since the release of Genesis, we figure it might be a good time to summarize them and get you caught up to speed!

General

- Completed a full pass on Loot Crates to improve loot variation and quality - Unofficials can now use flying creatures by adding the following setting to your GameUserSettings.ini under the [ServerSettings] section: bForceCanRideFliers=True - Building is now enabled in mission areas by default on Unofficial Servers (no longer need to use the aforementioned ini to change it) - Increased the reliability of repairing glitches - Added a debuff to reduce damage to tames, players, structures for a short duration of time after releasing from cryo. - Increased the placement radius check for ocean platforms to prevent them from being placed next to enemy foundations/platforms - Added an optional visual indicator for the TEK trough radius - Added a "Grind All" function added to grinders

Magmasaur

- Basilisks can now be tamed on Fertilized Magmasaur Eggs - Magmasaur now requires metal ingots to shoot projectiles - Magmasaur projectile speed and gravity adjusted for proper turret targeting in low FPS conditions - Ambergris weight now scales by 0.5 in Magmasaur to help with raising babies

Snow Owl

- Players recover 50% faster from the frozen state left by the Snow Owl dive - Removed the Snow Owl heal effect on enemy players and enemy-tamed creatures (wild creatures are still affected) - Snow Owl dive slow has been reduced to 2.5 seconds

MEK's

- Pistol Damage versus Tamed Creatures reduced by 30% - MEK Rocket Boost (tapping/holding space) should no longer damage tamed creatures or players. - Reduce MEK movement speed by 20% when shield is up - Sword Damage versus Tamed Creatures and Players reduced by 25%

Ferox

- Adjusted Ferox knockback distance for PvE scenarios in which it could move other tribes tames - Ferox can no longer be trapped with a bola

Bloodstalker

- Reduced the range at which it can grapple an enemy to just slightly below maximum auto turret range (5800 units) - Reduced mobility for BloodStalker while over-encumbered - Improved the overall feel and appearance when webbed by BloodStalker

Pelagornis

- Polymer weight reduced by 80% when in Pelagornis inventory - Increased polymer harvesting by approximately 30%

Rhino

- Decreased the maximum damage scale from 12.5x to 8x when charging - Increased the time/distance it takes to charge up to max by 20% (so it'll take longer to hit that 8x) - Rhinos are now affected by Plant Y crowd control

Cluster Grenades

- Cluster fragments if shot by a turret will now detonate all other fragments from the same originating grenade

Fabricator

- Can now craft the TEK Replicator (TEK Replicator has been removed from Loot Crates in Genesis)

TEK Suits

- Increased TEK Suit repair costs by approximately 20% - Wearing a full TEK suit will prevent you from being targeted by bees when opening a beehive - Capped TEK Suit durability at 1500 - TEK Suit repair costs now scale with quality

HLNA

- Improved the accuracy of HLNA cardinal direction when teleporting - HLNA teleportation logic now tries to avoid turrets, non-allied players, and hostile dinos - Improved reliability of HLNA teleportation when traveling with tames - Improved HLNA performance when crafting a large number of items

Missions

- Improved several visual components of the mission UI (difficulty text, leaderboards, item lists, mission notifications) - Increase to timers on various beta and alpha race missions - Improved navigation issues on Escort Missions - Removed mission requirement for additional players when entering the final boss with a player who has the requirements. - Added a HUD notification during the VR Boss fight to indicate you've reached the limit - Creatures can no longer attack through the barrier while on Gauntlet missions

Creatures (Misc)

- Schools of fish no longer damage rafts and motorboats - Prevented itchy from stealing cryopods - Parasaurs no longer detect bodies that are not visible or rendered - Reduced cloning cost for the Giant Turtle - Gachas will no longer auto consume buff soup/food. This means they won't accidentally eat them when they're stored in troughs. - Added the ability to use the Reaper tailspin attack while using a gamepad - Insect swarms now give chitin instead of hide

Damage/Health

- Increased damage to insect swarms by Beelzebufo to 2.5x - Increased damage to insect swarms by Fire to 1.5x - Reduced health of insect swarms by 50% - Reduced Tek Claw damage against structures - Reduced AoE damage on the TEK cruise missile

Biomes

- Significantly reduced the frequency and slightly increased the duration of green rain in the bog biome - Reduced the number of insect swarms in Bog biome by about 25% - Added a cooldown between green rain insect swarm spawns. - Reduced the bat spawns in the main volcano within the volcano biome - Made several collision improvements for meshes on Aberration

Bugs

- Fixed an exploit with Magmasaur - Fixed an issue with Dedicated storage locking behavior on PvE (Players could withdraw items when it was "locked") - Fixed a bug that allowed building within the boss arena on Valguero - Fixed 100+ holes, terrain, and level design issues across various maps - Fixed a turret exploit with the Space Whale - Fixed multiple cases where the Bloodstalker couldn't swing around Extinction - Fixed some configuration issues with the dynamic rates ini on non-standard official servers - Fixed an issue with collision on several meshes - Fixed several mesh holes in various biomes - Fixed several missing notifications on gather, retrieve, basketball, hunt, and escort missions - Fixed an exploit that allowed Ferox to clip inside enemy structures - Fixed a bug which prevented the Moeder boss fight from initiating correctly - Fixed a bug which prevent players from seeing Primitive+ servers - Fixed an issue with crafting costs on TEK items - Fixed a bug which allowed players to cancel the Spinos' animation and attack twice. - Fixed multiple bugs related to locations showing Mission Areas when they weren't supposed to or vice versa - Fixed an invulnerability exploit - Fixed an invulnerability exploit for ferox - Fixed cooldown time for the mindwipe - Fixed various server crashes - Fixed a crash related to the bog spider - Fixed instances where the lunar buff would remain after using a TEK Teleporter - Fixed a rare occurrence where Ferox could jump through the mesh or get through the world barrier - Fixed a bug where Ferox could jump while over-encumbered - Fixed a bug that caused Ferox taming meter to be invisible - Fixed several taming effectiveness and taming multiplier bugs with BloodStalker and Giant Turtle - Fixed a case where Space Whale could blink behind static meshes - Fixed a bug with Ferox that allowed it to stay transformed by forcefeeding - Fixed an issue with mindwipes that caused them to have an increased cooldown timer - Fixed a bug with Ferox taming methods - Fixed an instance in which the BloodStalker's web could remain attached after teleporting with HLNA - Fixed a rare occurrence where the Dodo Basketball mission could not be completed after switching languages - Fixed several visual bugs with HLNA teleportation - Fixed a bug that prevented players using gamepads from using the throw attack on Karkinos - Fixed an issue that caused a Follow whistle command when holding 'B' on a gamepad - Fixed an occurrence where the mining drill sound would remain playing after mounting a dino - Fixed instances with damage scaling while using weapons with projectiles - Fixed a rare bug that caused recent mission progress to be lost after a server restart - Fixed a bug that caused the Space Whale corpse to disappear after 1 hit - Fixed a bug that prevented several Aberration dinos from being downloaded on Genesis - Fixed occurrences where Magmasaur could damage structures out of turret range - Fixed an exploit with Ferox - Fixed several performance-related crashes - Fixed an instance where the mining drill could dismount players - Fixed occurrences where players could incorrectly get inside of Gauntlet missions - Fixed incorrect damage for building in Arctic and Ocean biome - Fixed implementation of newly added Genesis configuration settings - Fixed an exploit with Ferox - Fixed a display bug with the Hexagon Shop - Fixed a bug where Pelas and Itchys would fly to xyz coordinates 0 0 0 - Fixed a bug where players could attack each other with the mining drill - Fixed a bug where items may have received an unintended item cap - Fixed player emote specific to Portugese language setting - Fixed certain languages not finding appropriate directories - Fixed several mesh holes - Fixed a critical crash - Fixed space whale's display name - Fixed an issue where rock slides would linger after ending - Fixed several visual bugs with Magmasaur - Fixed several visual bugs with Space Whale - Fixed several bugs with the Ferox taming process - Fixed issue where insect swarms could attack through walls - Fixed an issue with Megachelon (turtle) taming method - Fixed a taming bug with the Bloodstalker - Fixed a crash with Extinction's horde crate and element node - Fixed some bugs which caused projectiles to not expire on clients - Fixed an issue that would prevent players connecting to OC servers - Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving the mission buff in specific biomes (Bog/Ocean/Arctic) - Fixed the increased damage multiplier in various biomes - Fixed an edge case that caused the player to be destroyed when mounting an Equus and equipping its saddle - Fixed a visual bug with the Hover Skiff rotation when restarting the server - Fixed an instance where players with glide suits weren't being reeled in properly by BloodStalker - Fixed a bug where the Giant Turtle could be tamed out of render distance - Fixed an instance in which tamed dinos would be launched long distances by avalanches - Fixed a visual bug with the Space Whale saddle that caused skins to remain on when the saddle is removed - Fixed a bug where Ferox Stats were being rerolled after first time transforming - Fixed a damage exploit with Ferox - Fixed a rare case where the mining drill could damage the tek sensor - Fixed an exploit with cruise missiles that allowed them to bypass turrets - Added Deinonychus saddle to the engrams list - Added several missing items to the HLNA Hexagon Store - Magamasaur no longer takes damage from lava on The Center - Ferox should now keep its imprint buff when in large form - Teleporting East in the Bog biome will no longer transport the player South East - Activation/deactivation settings will now save on the tek alarm - Activation/deactivation settings will now save on the pressure plate - The lava on The Island in caves and the lava in the Wyvern trench on S.E. will no longer damage Magmasaur - Cryopods can be accessed in the HLNA Shop again - Made adjustments in areas near the volcano to fix rare instances where eruptions would instantly kill players/dinos - Prevented Meks from being deployed in the VR Mission - Re-enabled configuration to prevent Reapers from being transferred to Genesis - Improved several areas where localization was missing or incorrectly - Removed the ability to give birth to Reapers while on Genesis - Basketball Missions rewards should now match their intended reward returns - Restored Extinction Horde mode data

Eggcellent Adventure Returns Tomorrow

Don't forget Eggcellent Adventure starts tomorrow and runs until April 21st. Don't miss out on you opportunity to experience this annual event on PC, Xbox, and PS4!

Click Here For Event Details

Stay At Home Sale (Up to 80% Off)

If you've been waiting to become a Survivor on PC, now is the time! ARK: Survival Evolved base game, Season Pass, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction and the Explorer's Edition are now on sale on Steam!

Grab yours at the sale price until the 24th of April!

EVO Event

There will be no EVO event while Eggcellent Adventure is active.

Until next time!

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

Mar 29, 2020

Community Crunch 221: Eggcellent Adventure 5!

ARK: Survival Evolved - complexminded

Eggcellent Adventure 5

Beginning Tuesday, April 7th until April 21st, survivors will be able to experience our annual Eggcellent Adventure event on PC, Xbox, and PS4! While much of the world is at home, we wanted to give you some new adventures to hunt down. During Eggcellent Adventure 5, survivors will be able to collect special "Bunny Eggs" across the ARK from wild Bunny Dodo's. These Bunny Eggs can be painted or used in special Cooking Pot recipes to craft new holiday-themed item skins such as the Spear and C4 skin, as well as 10 returning skins.

Similar to past Eggcellent Adventure events, Bunny Oviraptor's will drop festive Dino Candy. Collect the candy and feed it to your tames for a special festive effect! To top it all off, wild creatures roaming the ARKs will also find themselves sporting some eggcellent colors!

For those that are looking to expand their chibi collection, you're in luck! You'll be able to collect the past chibi's we've introduced with the addition of 6 new chibi pets by placing and cracking event-themed eggs from wild bunny dodos.

Event Details

Rate Boosts

2X Breeding (mating interval, egg hatch speed, and maturation) 2X Player XP 2X Harvesting 2X Taming

New Chibi's

Megalodon Karkinos Beelzebufo Basilisk Seeker Bunny

New Emotes

Bunny Hop Dance

Skins

New Content Easter-themed C4 with easter-themed explosion VFX Chocolate Egg Easter Hat Easter-themed Spear Existing Content Bunny Ears Skin Bunny Ears Skin Procoptodon Bunny Costume Dino Easter Chick Hat Dino Easter Egg Hat Easter Chick Hat Easter Egg Hat Marshmallow Hat Skin Dino Marshmallow Hat Skin Chocolate Rabbit Club Skin

Items

Existing Content Festive Dino Candy

Event-colored Wild Creatures

Magenta Light Green Light Yellow Light Orange Light Red Dino Light Brown Dino Dark Brown Yellow Cyan Green Dino Medium Blue Turquoise LightPink DeepPink Peach Mint Teal PowderBlue Cream

Eggcellent Painting Contest

Want to show off your creative side? Similar to last year, we are bringing back the community egg-painting competition. After you've found a Dodo egg, place the egg down on the ground and take out your paintbrush and dyes. You'll be able to paint select regions on the egg as well as free-hand paint it with the brush to paint any design on it. Have fun and get creative!

There will be three competitions with a prize for the winner of $100!

In-Game Painting
Real-life Egg Painting

For the in-game egg painting, players are expected to paint their own designs and downloading templates or images to use is not allowed. For the real-life egg painting, we're looking for you and your tribemates to get together and paint some eggs in real life that somehow reflect the world of ARK! Screenshot or photo quality won't be taken into consideration but try to get a picture that best shows off your egg.

The entries will be judged by our community team. Submissions are limited to three eggs per survivor, so choose your best egg. You'll have the month of April to enter, with April 30th being the final day to enter. Submit your images in the comments below, and we look forward to seeing your creativity!

Click here for examples of entries from last year

Steam Sale: Explorers Edition (75% Off)

EVO Event

Survivors on all platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 3rd of Apr at 1 PM EST until Monday the 6th of Apr at 3 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

3.5x Harvesting Rates
3.5x Breeding
3.5x Taming Rates
3.5x EXP Rates

Until next time!

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

Mar 16, 2020

Community Crunch 220

ARK: Survival Evolved - complexminded

Community Crunch 202

Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch!

We've got a short one this week. We're all busy working on new and exciting content for upcoming months. We are remaining focused on the health of the Official Network and collecting bug reports and feedback from various social media platforms.

You should expect to see a continued focus on existing bugs and polish as we round into the summer months!

On The Horizon

Enforcement Updates
Mission Areas
Last week we encountered a bug that rendered some caves build-able. If you have structures within a mission zone (cave) on the Genesis map, you should remove them. The Enforcement Team will take the appropriate actions to remove them otherwise.

Teleport Zones
Teleport zones are treated as spawn zones and should not be blocked or have turrets in them on PvP or PvE

Mindwipes
Recently we deployed a patch with a fix to the cooldown timer on mindwipes. We are aware that this didn't resolve all the existing issues that players are currently seeing. We are actively working on a fix for the remaining issues.

Player Dedicated Servers
We hoped to have player dedicated servers up and running but we've hit a roadblock that will delay us from being able to deliver the feature as we had previously hoped. We will keep you updated on the progress we are making!

Voice Chat
We're excited to introduce new chat modes (whisper and yell) for those that found the previous chat functionality lacking. We expect to have this feature deployed to PC in the near future!

EVO Events
We've enhanced our tuning system that's responsible for rates, like harvesting and taming, to be more accommodating for the various game modes and play styles we have available. This will allow us to do specialized rates for those who didn't normally receive them. We're putting the final pieces in place and we'll let you know when the system is live and ready to go. We'll do a detailed post outlining how you should expect EVO events to work in the future.

EVO Event

Survivors on all platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 20th of Mar at 1 PM EST until Monday the 23rd of Mar 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
Until next time!

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

Mar 4, 2020

Community Crunch 218

ARK: Survival Evolved - complexminded

Introducing Crystal Isles

We are very excited to announce that the one-of-a-kind experience of the ISO: Crystal Isles map will be coming to PC, XBOX, and PlayStation this Summer!

Crystal Isles is a stunning, other-worldly map filled with a vibrant display of teeming life scattered amidst its varied landscapes, awe inspiring floating islands and breathtaking biomes. Ever since Crystal Isles launched as a mod in 2016, its fantasy appeal has secured its place as one of the most popular maps within the ARK community and we can't wait to bring it to players as a fully supported free DLC.

The Crystal Isles DLC will also launch resplendent with a new real-world dinosaur to tame! What do you think the new dinosaur may be?

In other news, we've been itching to share that we'll be performing a TLC Pass 3 in the Summer of 2020! This TLC pass will see some of our classic creatures get some new love via visual and functional upgrades.

As we move closer to the release of the new Crystal Isles DLC and our much-awaited TLC Pass 3 we'll share more details and information with our players.

New Sponsored Mods

Dead Survival

Tired of dinosaurs? Of course you aren’t, but sometimes we do want a little change in our diet. Dead Survival does just that, you can swap out the wildlife of the game with some … not… quite life? Zombies… I’m trying to say you can have zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. Hordes of them even.

Check out the Dead Survival Mod

Roleplay Additional Items

RP communities have been a long time aspect of ARK, but sometimes our core structures can feel a bit insubstantial when you are trying to build a set for acting in. Roleplay Additional Items can add a lot more flourish to your locations from lighting structures and gear, to new taxidermy stations!

Check out the Roleplay Additional Items Mod

ArkVenture Park

I’m pretty sure we have all dreamed of having our own backyard water slides and roller coasters. (Zen may have actually tried at one point, and failed… obviously) But now you can do just that in your base. Build that mine-cart roller-coaster that plows through your living room or a water-slide to the lava pools out back!

Check out the ArkVenture Park Mod

Castles, Keeps, and Forts: Remastered

CKF development went dormant for a little while while the author went on a break. But it’s back, and getting a face-lift. The author is taking what they learned over the years and working on a remastered CKF (The original is still available). So far it’s looking great!

Check out the Castles, Keeps, and Forts Mod

On The Horizon

Primitive+
Primitive+ remains a priority. We have engineering teams working on the complications from the Genesis update. We will keep you informed with any significant progress

Genesis Part I Update
We're continuing to work on Genesis bugs and balance and we plan to keep up with the rapid iterations. Thank you for your reports and feedback.

EVO Event

There will be no EVO event this upcoming weekend.

Until next time!

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