ARK: Survival Evolved

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Spang
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ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Spang »

This game is currently in early access so it has more bugs than a Merrie Melodies cartoon, but it's still very playable and a lot of fun.

You start out on a deserted island with just a loin cloth and your thoughts, surrounded by dinosaurs. You then need to begin picking berries for food and gathering stone, wood and other resources to build and craft things. Until you gather enough resources to assemble a stone pick, you'll be punching trees for thatch and wood. This does hurt you so be careful not to die. You can gather stone off the ground so you won't have to punch boulders.

You survive and you evolve and eventually you have yourself a little camp that might look something like this:
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The crop plots are growing different types of berries. The compost bin to the right creates fertilizer when you add thatch and feces (everyone poops). I surrounded the camp with wooden spikes to keep carnivorous dinosaurs out. It was mostly effective.
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You will want to tame a dinosaur to help carry the heavy resources and to aid you in battle. My first tamed dinosaur, a phiomia, was named Tubs.
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Tubs got killed so I had to get another Tubs, but it also perished. Now I have Tubs III and he got Violet, another phiomia, pregnant.
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To tame a dinosaur, you need to render it unconscious. In the early stages, this involves punching it over and over. Once unconscious, you need to feed it, ideally its preferred kibble. Otherwise, vegetables and berries for herbivores, and raw/cooked meat for carnivores.

I recently tamed a raptor:
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Her name is Cassandra:
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Dorothy on the right is a triceratops that I tamed previously. She helps carry all the heavy stone and wood I gather.

I left my first camp and setup a new camp on the other side of the island. My farm currently looks like this:
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It has an irrigation system and a lot more compost bins.

I have a raft, too:
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The brontosauruses are quite large:
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If you like dinosaurs and survival games, you'll probably enjoy this. You can play on a server with other people, or you can play by yourself. You can also play on a local area network with friends.
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Aslanna
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Aslanna »

Assuming it doesn't get shut down.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Spang »

Lawsuit settled.

Game on!
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

The game looks a little interesting although there are endless posts about horrible frame rates etc.

Also, as with most survival type games, the community appears to be horrible with mostly grieving on public servers so either you play it solo or it sucks.

I saw something about private servers but not sure what those are and how they are handled.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Spang »

The frame rate is pretty bad. There are PVE servers, but I could never build anything because it was always too close to an existing tribe, so I just play solo.

I'm up to level 45. In a few more levels I'll be able to harness electricity.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

Trying this game out. Only played a day. I poop everywhere. We killed our dinner and then pooped right on top of it. Does that change later on? Do you poop inside your home?
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

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We got lucky and found a server with only like 3 or 4 other players on it and they're all nice and the land isn't cluttered all, in fact rare to see a structure while walking around but the few people on the server are around level 60. We've hit the 15-17 range. They have server wide voice chat activated so easy to ask questions.

Some people gave us a Raptor and Trike tamed. We've since tamed a predator type dino to help with hunting.

Amazing how many berries etc the Trike forages when I take him out. I almost got our Raptor killed, she passed out but I was able to revive it by force feeding it Stimberries.

Impressed with how detailed you can get with painting. Our raptor has pink toenails now.

Overall fun. Quite a learning curve in the beginning. I almost rage quit several times in the early going when couldn't figure out why health dropped so fast, etc. We died again today. Sucks to lose everything but now there are some storage lockers at base camp with basic resources and clothes etc, and a bed that can spawn at instead of random spawns. Have a stone building so finally safe from rampaging dinos.

This game much more fun with at least one other person in tribe working together to get things done. I don't think our server has any XP/breeding/foraging multipliers.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

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Winnow wrote:Trying this game out. Only played a day. I poop everywhere. We killed our dinner and then pooped right on top of it. Does that change later on? Do you poop inside your home?
You poop wherever you are. Hit 'Z' to poop.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

Here's a great resourced fro game info:

http://ark.gamepedia.com/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Wiki

Great game if you manage to stick it out through the first 10 levels or so which can be extremely frustrating with no information to guide you. Biggest tip I have is to make sure you're full health or your hunger level drops like a rock early on. Once you tame a Trike (which actually probably don't happen until late teens or 20's, you can forage 100's of berries, thatch etc in minutes) Also, creating assloads of storage chests isn't a bad idea either but most important is making a sleeping bag, and then a bed so you have a point to spawn to as you can get totally lost when randomly thrown into the world after you die.

We're closing in on 20. Felt a little more comfortable with things since about level 15. Tamed and saddled our first flying dino last night (with help of a higher level player on the server). Liking the flight mechanics and great view from above. Made a raft as well to scoot around the coast.

The variety of dinos you can tame and their ability to help hunt, forage, etc is impressive. The building, crafting, foraging, hunting etc is also entertaining.

Worth giving a shot if you like survival games, dinosaurs, and fun (not annoying) building/crafting etc). Play solo or on a decent PvE server.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

tip: TAB Key --> type: gamma 4 <enter>

to see better at night, gamma 2 to return to normal vision during the day.


Another interesting game mechanic are beacons. Think of them like the random care package drops in the hunger games. White level 3, Green level 15, blue level 25, purple level 35 beacons can appear that at the bottom have items you can loot...random stuff but nice to get if you can make it to the beacon before it poofs (or someone else gets it). Not something to worry abut but nice addition to the game.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

Probably the most fun I've had in an open world since EverQuest.

It's a different game than EQ...more survival in the beginning and then exploring, taming and building, but the real danger of dying is always present with the same (actually worse) harsh penalties.

Everything ends up being a story in itself. For example, yesterday: (and this is just a small part of what we did yesterday)

Building stone structures requires thatch, wood and stone. Various dinos and mammals help in foraging for resources. The Beaver (there's a fancy pre-historic name for it) can gather wood like mad. The Doedicurus (dino with spiked ball on tail) can gather Stone very well. We didnt have anything that could gather thatch efficiently. Turns out a Megaloceros (pre historic moose) gathers thatch well.

We live on an island in the very southeast corner of the map. It's a pretty safe island with no carnivores and lots of resources but limited selection of dinos there. Megaloceros hang out in opposite corner of the world in the Northwest corner of the huge map in snowy/cold areas.

First issue is the cold. We have nice metal armor now but that doesn't help against the cold. Fur armor is the best but we haven't learned the skills so decided to wear hide/leather armor as it helps a little with the cold.

Second, while you can tranquilize and tame a dino/mammal on the spot, this didn't seem to be a good idea considering the cold and higher level area. We have two Argentavis, which are huge eagle looking birds. Turns out these birds are capable of picking up something as large as the Megaloceros (moose). The plan was to travel on our (eagles) across the entire map (long trip), snatch a moose up with my bird (which I put more leveling points into weight carrying ability) and then haul it all the way back to our fort in the southeast and drop it in our taming pen. After that we could easily shoot it with tranq arrows and then tame it free from predators looking to eat us or the unconscious moose.

The map is huge. Traveling by flight takes awhile. Depending on your bird's stamina, you typically need to land a few times on the way to regain stamina. Every landing can be an adventure so you need to pick your landing spots wisely. We made it across to the northwest corner and landed right before the snowy area to plan our strategy. When cold, your food consumption goes up dramatically. We had plenty of cooked meat so had this covered. Plan was to fly in as short a distance as possible until we spotted a (moose), grab it and then fly back outside, regain stamina then head home.

Initially things went well. We spotted a level 24 moose and I grabbed it with my bird's talons to carry it home. As we start heading back out of the cold area I hear a heart beat sound. I look at my food, it looks good. Turns out that it was so cold our hps were dropping even though we had food.

Time for emergency dive landing right at edge of cold zone. There was a raptor a ways off but no time to be picky. i dropped the moose and landed as did my tribe partner. The raptor immediately runs and attacks the moose. We take off still with like 10% HPs each. The moose runs into the water to try and get away from the raptor. My partner flys after the moose to try and snatch it out of the water with the bird and accidentally hits the "E" key which dismounts...not a good thing while flying, she goes plummeting into the water, still alive. Starts swimming toward shore. I swoop down to try and grab her out of the water and miss. She gets to shore and the raptor promptly kills and eats her (hide armor not so good in this case with 10% hps vs raptor).

All that's left is a backpack with her belongings on the shore but the raptor is still walking around. I decide to try and pick up the raptor and move it or drop and kill it...but my bird's stamina is too low and I can't pick it up. It starts beating the crap out of my bird as I waddle away trying to get airborne. I barely manage that with like 50 stamina left.

I'm able to get back to pick up all the belongings (equipment etc) of my dead triber. She's respawn back at base camp which is 30 minutes away at best. Now my personal weight is near max with my inventory crammed full. I need to get her bird home so fly close and issue a command for it to follow me.

Over chat, I hear "get the moose!" Happy to be alive and to have not lost my bird, we still want that damn moose. The moose swam out to a small rock off the coast and was just standing there, probably catching its breath after the raptor encounter. I head over and grab it with my bird, pretty much maxing it's weight with the combination of the moose and me being overloaded with double normal inventory weight.

Flapping away, I make my way home carrying the moose with the other bird following me. Three times I have to find a spot to land, drop the moose, land, recover stamina, pick the moose back up and head for home. Thankfully the moose didn't try to kick and bite me like some things you pick up. Get home and drop it in the secure training pen. Unfortunately the bird following me has switched modes to attack instead of passive or neutral that we normally have on so it starts attacking the moose.

After getting the bird off aggressive, we shoot the mooses's ass full of tranq arrows and drop it, then proceed to keep it down with narcotics and tame it over about an hour. I made a saddle for it (something like 200 hide, 125 fiber and 8 metal ingots) and now we have a moose named Sven that gathers thatch fast!

---------

With regard to the small event that took place yesterday, there are a few things that make it noteworthy as to why ARK is fun/satisfying. There's no grind. It's constant adventure. The only grind is by choice. If you want to make a massive base, you "grind" to gather the resources to make that massive base. But you can get by with a rudimentary base if you want to. As long as you make stone walls (not thatch or wood), dinos can't break them down. Make a sleeping bag or bed to secure a respawn spot there and you're good to go.

The fun thing about ARK is that there are a lot of memorable things that take place. I'll remember the moose and what it took to get him. It wasn't a simple thing. It took some coordination and lots of risk. If I had died or my bird died it would have sucked balls. Those two birds each have a story of their own as to how they were tracked down and tamed. Your dinos also level up so losing one isn't a ho-hum event but also sucks balls, which means you take care about what you do. It's worse to lose your dino than to die yourself.

The map is massive and there can only be a max of 64 players so you can be very spread out. I'd recommend PvE. Can't imagine the headache PvP servers would be like. You can play it by yourselv without joining a server which is OK but working with someone to do things is really fun, especially when it comes to taming, etc.

If you manage not to rage quit after 10 minutes, some very basic super early tips:

-hit "E" to forage in bushes for berries. They will keep you alive until..

-craft a hatchet, pick and spear in that order. You will need to punch trees until you ahve wood required to make the hatchet which lowers your hps and you don't have many to begin with so getting a hatchet is important

-hit (TAB) button and type gamma 3 or gamma 4 and then <enter> to make it bright enough to see at night without a torch (gamma 2 for default when day returns)

- try and find server with low population. there are a lot of unofficial servers. Southeast is a relatively good place to start in.

http://ark.gamepedia.com/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Wiki

Wiki had lots of info and is a good reference.

Will post a progression of screenshots of fort later as example of things can do in that area.
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Re: ARK: Survival Evolved

Post by Winnow »

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Initial fence for new base.

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Next project was to make a ramp all the way to top. I just discovered how to dye armor and went all disco!

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We then decided to make bridge/gate/fence across to help our dinos gather resources faster.

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Also to make some more structures at top.

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Over on The Center map, we were exploring and landed on a small ledge one night and put down a few foundations and started to build..and build.

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Now it's becoming a decent/safe base on the floating island.

This game is a blast, whether it be just plain surviving, exploring, taming or building. Good times.
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