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


We have two important announcements for the modding community!

The first is that we are making some changes to the sponsored mod program. Previously it was more challenging to get eyes on the potential candidate projects as we would have to scour the workshop, discords, and forums; we could only see projects in their current public state, and what information the mod author chose to include. We will instead be moving to a more structured system.

Starting on September 1st, you can fill out this application to apply for sponsorship. This will help ensure that only the projects that are interested and ready for sponsorship are being brought to our attention and allow those mod authors to provide some additional information about where they are planning to take their project.

The program will also be moving to a more regular pattern, the application will be open for a period of five weeks starting in the months of January, March, May, July, and September at which point there will be slots opening in the program. Sponsorship periods will be capped at a year, but it is possible to re-apply for sponsorship after that period.

These changes will lead to a more predictable schedule of the program and give a more clear route to sponsorship for all interested mod authors.

Now for something a bit more exciting...



The ARK Modding Contest is back!!!

That's right; your eyes are not deceiving you, the ARK Modding Contest will return on September 1st! We have $28,000! in cash prizes for mod authors to compete for, and the Grand Prize is a whopping $15,000!!! So saddle up those Dev Kits, ready the mod cannons, and prepare for battle!

This will be our third modding contest, and the modding community as a whole has come a long way in terms of skill and creativity since we held the last one.

There will be a five-week entry phase followed by a two-week voting phase where players can show support for their favorite mods. Head over to http://ark.gg/ModContest for more information on the contest and to start preparing. This will take you to the main contest page where you can find out current information about the contest as it progresses, including hourly updates on rankings once we enter the voting phase.




This Thursday August 30th 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 30th at 1pm EST! We hope to see you there :)




Survivors will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 31st of August at 1 PM EST until Monday the 3rd of September 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

Thank you for all of your questions, Survivors! We're excited to be bringing back the ARK Digest as it's been quite awhile since we had one. We plan to do these approximately once a month going forward so Digest 54 will take place near the end of September.

Here is our question and answer session with Lead Programmer Chris Willoughby!

Survivor Tiny Hippo asks, “I'm getting the feeling that Extinction will be a no-flyer map like Aberration was. The new cryo-chamber system, the climbing Enforcer, the drone, floating boxes, and the Gasbags seem like things that would replace flying, so I just get the idea that there may not be fliers on Extinction. Would you please clarify if there will or won't be?”

Fliers are allowed on Extinction! There will be a number of existing fliers that spawn in Extinction, and we’re working on a few more to add to your collection. That said, there will be new challenges for fliers on this map that we’re excited for you to discover and contend with.

Survivor Max K asks, “Any news on the kibble tree rework?”

While imperfect, a lot of thought and work went into building the kibble tree as it stands now. A number of us internally would like to make major changes to this, potentially rebuilding it from the ground up. The reality is that this represents a significant undertaking, and would be very disruptive to the game. If we decide to tackle this, it will be post Extinction.

Survivor B Anthony asks, “Will there be artifacts in Extinction? And will the Obelisks still be used to go to the boss's room in Extinction?”

We’re still hammering out the exact summoning mechanics, but the Titan battles in Extinction will take place on the live map. There will not be separate boss fight arenas for them.

Survivor Caleb H asks, “Is there a scheduled frame of time that the S+ mod mechanics will be implemented? If so, when could we expect to see them? I'm sure the community would love to see the progress you have made.”

S+ is a shining example of the benefits of releasing mod tools to the community. It contains a number of improvements to the building system that we’d like to integrate. That said, it also contains a number of features and mechanics that circumvent systems in the game. Given this, we aren’t planning to integrate the mod wholesale. We are, however, examining and tracking individual improvements that would make sense to integrate. Any improvements in this area would come after Extinction launches.

Survivor Kim R asks, “Have you definitely decided for or against whether some mechanics from the expansion packs might carry over to other maps? I'm thinking of the cliff platforms that would be cool to build on the Island or other maps.”

When we set out to build an expansion, we seek to add gameplay that adds to the core experience. Our goal, then, is to allow those mechanics to be used in all the places that make sense. Cliff Platforms work on all maps, for example. A number of the features we’re adding in Extinction are meant to be used across all of the other maps. They’re meant to change things up on multiple levels.

Survivor Kim R asks, “Is it, or will it be, possible to run multiple events as a server owner? For example, both the Easter Event and the ARKaeology Event?”

Unfortunately, no. When we set out earlier this year to rebuild the event system in a way that they would persist, we decided not to ensure compatibility between them. Largely they modify many of the same bits, so making them fully compatible would take a significant amount of work and lower the likelihood that we could implement cool things like the bone pile spawning in the ARKaeology event.

Survivor Austin K asks, “With Extinction being the biggest DLC you've done yet, can we expect most if not all dinos in the game to be featured on the map?”

A number of our previous creatures will inhabit the Extinction map. As with our other expansions, we’ll bring across the ones that make the most sense and incorporate them. In addition, we’re adding the highly aggressive corrupted versions of a number of creatures to provide new challenges.

Survivor BrokenRealm asks, “Will there be another Ark: Fear Evolved?”

We like creating new and interesting events for our players. Unfortunately, most of our effort at that time will be focused on ensuring a smooth and enjoyable launch for Extinction. Doing a Halloween event and wrapping the expansion at the same time would have a negative impact on both, so we’ll be skipping Halloween this year.

Survivor Dave M asks, “Will there be any new mods coming out for console players?

We’re aware that our console players would like to see more in this space. We don’t have anything specific to announce at the moment, but stay tuned.

Survivor Joaquin S asks, “If you had to describe Extinction in one to three words, what would they be?”

Prodigious, challenging, fresh. The Titans bring a number of new elements to the core experience through public boss fights and taming of even larger creatures. The new in-world event system we’re building will bring new gameplay to both PVE and PVP servers. Finally, the introduction of the city brings a whole new dynamic to exploration and building. I’m really excited about these new elements.

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


On August 16th we had our sixth Community Livestream. Thank you to all of those who attended and participated! The community team had a lot of fun and we hope you did as well. If you weren't able to catch the stream you can watch the video-on-demand on our Twitch page or by clicking on the video below.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/298128665

This stream we were joined by the creator of the mod Auction House, Ghazlawl. Auction House allows you to create, bid on, and purchase auctions for items, weapons, blueprints, skins, dinos, etc, from players on your server or players on other servers who are also using the mod. On top of that, modded items and dinos are supported! The mod has its own intuiative UI to allow for easy trading.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=898049820
Chris, Zen and Jen then went on a taming adventure to find a Tek Raptor, which was newly introduced last week in our Extinction Chronicles III update. It was an eventful journey around the island full of action, and by action we mean being pounced on by every raptor except a Tek one.

After a suggestion from chat our adventurers made their way towards the volcano and it was on the way that they finally spotted a female Tek Raptor and tamed her, later dubbed "Raptotron" by chat. Success!

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 30th at 1PM EST! We hope to see you there :)


Hello everyone! Zen here. It's that time again for some mod news and reminders.

I have been getting some suggestions about changes to make for the tutorial bounty board. I will be thinking about those and consider the proper way to achieve the things people want to get from those suggestions. There are some claims that have been declared this month as well so I will be reviewing them shortly... or at least I should be, but I am actually in the middle of moving into a new apartment, so the bounty claims might be a bit delayed as I will be quite busy from now until the end of the month. I will get to them though, don't worry. The next workshop video will likely be delayed as well since my recording setup may not be ready in time.

I also have another Wildcard Workshop modding tutorial ready for you. I got some asks recently to cover event dispatchers, so here we go. These things are pretty useful so I would give it a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZ1DMbI4RM

We would like to give a special shoutout this week to artist Frillface for their amazing ARKwork created in MSPaint!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1482723717
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1481472756



Survivors across ALL Platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 24th of August at 1 PM EST until Monday the 27th 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

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

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!


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)


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




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 :)


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/




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

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


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/




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 :)




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

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!


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




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!




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