ARK - Survival Evolved (PC, XBox, PS4)

  • Thread starter Paulie
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This game is as addictive as crack, but so damn harsh at times. You really have to be patient and careful, and even then you can get wiped out (and half of your dinos) in the blink of an eye. It's like the longest game of snakes and ladders ever :)

That said, I am playing vanilla one-player with no tweaks to the settings, as seems a little hollow to me to boost everything up. I guess I will try multiplayer when I get bored of that, but I keep coming back to it. Last night I stood for five minutes watching a T-Rex approach one of those bigfoot guys and a big fight ensued, the hairy guy was holding his own, boxing the Rex's face but eventually lost out and the T-Rex shook him like and ragdoll, ate him and went looking for more trouble. Incredible.
 
Paulie
That's disappointing for sure.
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Oh well I have an insane backlog of games right now. Especially on the X1. So its probably best they didn't release it this year. Plus the longer it takes, the better it will be.
 
Around £15.00 via Humble Bundle store for the next day or two, and although still technically early access, this is still such a vast, robust game, it is worth every penny and will only get better.
 
I got this on Steam a couple of months ago, absolutely love the game ! At first it wouldn't load up for me, but after searching the forums for a few hours I finally found a solution to get the game to load...been hooked on it ever since.
Just playing single player because I dont have the time to invest to be able to succeed in online multi player, but still loving every minute of it. I love the game even just as it is now, to think this still has probably another year of development makes me think this is the best $30 I've ever spent !
 
Ddrizle
Fear Evolved
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The Dodorex is MEGA insane, just watched Sl1pg8r and friends take it on, they had 5 level 200+ T-Rexes and didn't even make a dent in it.:lol:
 
Bumpy. Surprised more GTP'ers aren't into this superb game. The halloween "Fear Evolved" stuff was fun, but as a single player for now, I'm so glad a Dodorex didn't spawn anywhere near me. I was still running into skelly Alpha Raptors a week after the event ended though, unfortunately for several of my dinos and me =(

Have now fallen back to my base (since taking my dino army to see to that Alpha) to gather resources and fix up some of the stuff I lost, as didn't get any of it back. Licking my wounds but still enjoying this game so much. Much as I hate tweaking game settings though, it really is worth turning the taming slider up to around 3x as the default is just ridiculous, and just not fun. I shortened the nights a little too, rather than going for the easy gamma route.
 
Well I'm here @Tyger :) But yea there doesn't appear to be many GTP'ers that play for some reason.
That is one of reasons I like this game so much, in single player you can adjust so many things to suit your play style and amount of time you have to play. I have my XP and Resources set to 3x, and taming set to 5x (set it to short nights too), I have also changed some of the ini files to speed up the egg hatching/baby phases, also slowed down the rate at which food (prime meat) spoils....It works out great, I only get an hour or so every couple of days, so with settings like this I can actually get things done in the short amount of time I have :).

I did have an eventful week last week, had my first alpha (raptor) appear near my base, not sure how to deal with it, I took the risk and sent my highest level Triceratops into battle, we only just walked away victorious, a hit or two more and we would've been toast :ouch:. The next day I had my first Scorpion turn up next to my base, tamed her easily and now have a pet scorpion :). The day after that I had my first Carno appear outside my base, got her tamed too, but the next day had a male Carno appear, tamed him, now I have mate boosted Carno's :).....Slowly but surely building up my dino army....Still hoping and praying I dont run into a Gigano though :lol:.

Somehow I've managed to get over 100hrs into this game, and picking it'll take me another 200+hrs to get everything I want....Again, best $30 I have ever spent :)
 
Sounds like you are pacing yourself just right, I do for the most part but still have a few disasters now and then, and end up losing a few dinos and resources. I did fly up to a mountain top for some metal at one point and saw what looked like a Rex being a bit glitchy over the rise, looked like it was stuck near the peak so I pegged it with some tranq arrows, but 1. It wasn't stuck after all, and 2. It was actually a Giganoto, and literally killed me in one bite :(

Anyways last night I took my best predators to gather some meat quickly and possibly tame some of the things I've lost along the way, got into a skirmish with a rex and killed it surprisingly easily, then spotted another, just a level 2, and managed to tame her, my first one :)

For anyone starting out, it's really worth building up some Dilophosaurs and ideally some Raptors first, you can upgrade to Carnotaurs and Rexes later but everyone/tribe needs a Trike. Great for getting berries but throw a saddle on that mofo and it can take down most enemies just by keeping them out of range and timing those headbutts just right. Particularly good for dinos stuck on trees, who can't even reach past those horns to hit back. Dimorphodons are also surprisingly tough and add great aerial attacks, and whilst it's worth getting a Pteranadon as your first flyer, do try to tame an Argentavis as soon as possible, much less skittish and more strong and hardy than the Pteras.

Next step, once I've built my pet army back up some, is to make a sea base, raft and tame some more swimmers, then eventually check out the chilly North West of the island, which I haven't been to at all yet, since it was updated.

Anyone thinking about getting the game (it's around GBP15.00 on Steam again right now), I recommend paulsoaresjr and iballisticsquid's playlists on Youtube, entertaining stuff :)
 
noshog
Well I'm here @Tyger :) But yea there doesn't appear to be many GTP'ers that play for some reason.
That is one of reasons I like this game so much, in single player you can adjust so many things to suit your play style and amount of time you have to play. I have my XP and Resources set to 3x, and taming set to 5x (set it to short nights too), I have also changed some of the ini files to speed up the egg hatching/baby phases, also slowed down the rate at which food (prime meat) spoils....It works out great, I only get an hour or so every couple of days, so with settings like this I can actually get things done in the short amount of time I have :).

I did have an eventful week last week, had my first alpha (raptor) appear near my base, not sure how to deal with it, I took the risk and sent my highest level Triceratops into battle, we only just walked away victorious, a hit or two more and we would've been toast :ouch:. The next day I had my first Scorpion turn up next to my base, tamed her easily and now have a pet scorpion :). The day after that I had my first Carno appear outside my base, got her tamed too, but the next day had a male Carno appear, tamed him, now I have mate boosted Carno's :).....Slowly but surely building up my dino army....Still hoping and praying I dont run into a Gigano though :lol:.

Somehow I've managed to get over 100hrs into this game, and picking it'll take me another 200+hrs to get everything I want....Again, best $30 I have ever spent :)
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Sounds so fun. Looking forward to when this comes to the consoles in 2016.
 
@Tyger I've made the same mistake before as well, it was early in the game for me, I only had cloth armour and a primitive hatchet and spear, found a dino I thought was stuck on a tree, I thought sweet a nice easy first tame....next minute I have a broken spear, no armour and got myself trapped trying to out run it....a bit of an embarrassing death :embarrassed:. I now always test 'stuck' dinos from a very safe distance :lol:.
When I got my first Pteranadon, I thought I would go exploring, miles away from my base I accidently jumped off my mount and fell to my death and lost my bird...well maybe he's still flying around somewhere :lol:.

I dont have any Rex's yet (or an Argentavis) as they tend to spawn miles away from my base, not really too sure how to go about getting some just yet, I was thinking maybe go straight for one of those Quetz (?) birds and building a platform saddle for it so I can carry a few supplies and hover above my target to tranq it...but the problem is the Quetz (?) birds are few and far between as well.
 
noshog
@Tyger I've made the same mistake before as well, it was early in the game for me, I only had cloth armour and a primitive hatchet and spear, found a dino I thought was stuck on a tree, I thought sweet a nice easy first tame....next minute I have a broken spear, no armour and got myself trapped trying to out run it....a bit of an embarrassing death :embarrassed:. I now always test 'stuck' dinos from a very safe distance :lol:.
When I got my first Pteranadon, I thought I would go exploring, miles away from my base I accidently jumped off my mount and fell to my death and lost my bird...well maybe he's still flying around somewhere :lol:.

I dont have any Rex's yet (or an Argentavis) as they tend to spawn miles away from my base, not really too sure how to go about getting some just yet, I was thinking maybe go straight for one of those Quetz (?) birds and building a platform saddle for it so I can carry a few supplies and hover above my target to tranq it...but the problem is the Quetz (?) birds are few and far between as well.
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The Quetzalcoatls are notoriously hard to tame, as they rarely land and have resistance to torpor and a big hunger typical of the large dinos. I would suggest working your way up, Argentavis can be a handful but are quite easy to tranq if you get a few headshots in. You can either fly to the foothills of a mountain on a Ptera or go on foot with some good bodyguards, as Pteras literally get in a total flap at the first sign of danger, and sometimes fly off never to be seen again. You might even see some Argents near beaches, which are often the safest place in the game. All my early exploration was along beaches, until I'd gone around the whole island. Where is your base? And good luck =)

EDIT: Craft a couple of parachutes (they don't take a ton of materials) and hotbar them for those moments where you find yourself sans flying mount, flapping your arms and plummeting to the ground :)
 
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@Tyger My base is on the Weathertop on that Footpaw Island, the reason I was maybe going to try for a Quetz first was I thought I saw one flying around Cragg's Island, other than Dilo's there dont seem to be any other carnivores there so thought that would be a fairly safe place to try and tame one...but knowing my luck the thing will be somewhere else now anyway.
When I went exploring up around the Southern and North East Shores I found some Argentavis, but it made me a bit nervous thinking about trying to get one over there, because there were so many of them, I thought if I hit one all of them would come after me, then there were a heap of Raptors, Carnos and well plenty of other dinos that would want to eat me the moment I hit the ground :nervous: But yeah definitely want a better flyer, those Pteras are a bit fragile and unpredictable.
 
noshog
@Tyger My base is on the Weathertop on that Footpaw Island, the reason I was maybe going to try for a Quetz first was I thought I saw one flying around Cragg's Island, other than Dilo's there dont seem to be any other carnivores there so thought that would be a fairly safe place to try and tame one...but knowing my luck the thing will be somewhere else now anyway.
When I went exploring up around the Southern and North East Shores I found some Argentavis, but it made me a bit nervous thinking about trying to get one over there, because there were so many of them, I thought if I hit one all of them would come after me, then there were a heap of Raptors, Carnos and well plenty of other dinos that would want to eat me the moment I hit the ground :nervous: But yeah definitely want a better flyer, those Pteras are a bit fragile and unpredictable.
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Yeah ideally you want a lone Argent, they can gang up a little. Be careful tranquiing it too as I just killed one by hitting it with about 6 or 7 tranq arrows. I think I needed to back off and let the torpor set in a little more but it was all over me. I think the island you are on is herbivores only? So a good starting point. I started out at the little isthmus in the south-east which used to be a quiet little bay until the devs replaced most of it with a swamp. So I went to the North-East and set up home at the Hidden Lake, which is a really pretty, cool place with little danger.
 
Yeah generally the Footpaw is pretty safe, a few Dilo's is about the worst you'll see....generally :lol:. Head over the hill to the swamp side and it's a different story though. And as I said earlier I've had an Alpha Raptor, Carno's, Scorpions, Spiders, all sorts, spawn around my base recently, dont know if now I'm a higher level they are mixing the spawns up a little bit or it's been something to do with one of the updates, but after being quite safe for so long I was a bit surprised to see those creatures around my base....It's good though because I have new pets now :).

The Footpaw is going to be my main base, but in the future will be looking to set up secondary bases up around where you are now.
 
I've played a bit but since the game wasnt handling sli it diddnt look that good on my comp.

Does it handle sli profile now ?
 
@RX-7_FD3S I think I saw on the forums the other day someone saying it still doesn't properly support SLI.
Maybe have a quick look at the forums to get confirmation. They are starting to do the odd optimization with their patches so it may start working better even just using one card ?
 
Sl1pg8r is the best! Good to see it on a console, can't wait for PS4. It looked like there were a few graphical issues, I kept noticing the picture was distorting, hopefully they get that fixed up before the full release.
 
Downloaded the trial for the Xbox a while ago and never tried it, my wife was bored and started it up and wow. Yeah it's glitchy but for $35 and how much fun it is this is amazing. She was sold on it with in 30 minutes which never happens with her :lol:

We've got a kick ass little base near the green obelisk (was hoping to save everything and move servers but we are on an official server so no dice there) and just today tamed our 1st Dilophosaur (Dillon, wife named him, didn't like it) then we tamed our second on (Dilloff, now I like it!) then she killed Dilloff with a trike :(
 
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Yeah @Frizbe this game is definitely worth the money, I have somehow managed to get 200 hours of play time now and really only half way through everything I want to do. Even if I stopped playing now, 200hrs for $30 is about as good value for money as you can get :)
Starting off is a really exciting time in the game, learning what dino's are friendly and the ones that will eat you, taming your first dino's, getting a base started....Good times :)
Getting a Trike and a Small Dilo army is a good way to start, Trikes are quite good at gather resources and when leveled up a bit can take on Raptors and Carnos pretty easily, and a team of Dilo's are always good protection, because even if you lose a few they are easy to replace.

Hope the official Xbox servers treat you well, because there are some horror stories on the PC official servers.
Is there a single player mode on the Xbox ?
 
A good friend got it for me as a present via steam about 1 week ago. What can I say, I have played about 16 hours and we have severeal mid-range Dinos. To be honest, it's not my favourite game, but it's really addictive. Our strongest Dino, a lvl 145 Pteranodon died today. A spino killed him. RIP Pete. :(

The best part of the game is definitely naming the Dinos. We have about 20 Dinos with several multicultural names like Ahmad, Maggie, Christianella, Raoul, Nasenbeinbruch,... :lol:
 
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ImmalovemaGTR
A good friend got it for me as a present via steam about 1 week ago. What can I say, I have played about 16 hours and we have severeal mid-range Dinos. To be honest, it's not my favourite game, but it's really addictive. Our strongest Dino, a lvl 145 Pteranodon died today. A spino killed him. RIP Pete. :(

The best part of the game is definitely naming the Dinos. We have about 20 Dinos with several intercultural names like Ahmad, Maggie, Christianella, Raoul, Nasenbeinbruch,... :lol:
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From watching Sl1pg8r, that's definitely a big downside to Pteras, they're very fragile.
 
Shamelessly bumping this superb game, seems a little overlooked around these parts. Currently 50% off in the Steam summer sale, which is a steal.
 
Tyger
Shamelessly bumping this superb game, seems a little overlooked around these parts. Currently 50% off in the Steam summer sale, which is a steal.
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Still waiting on the PS4 version after it got delayed.
 
@CoolColJ There have been a few good optimizations recently. The last patch seemed to be quite good, for the first time ever I could start the game without any 'launch options' :). I maintained the same FPS without my launch options as I had when I did use them.
I still only get 20-30 FPS on average but my game looks much better now, and even dipping down to 20 FPS the game is easily playable.....Dont listen to the FPS junkies :lol:
That is the problem with PC though, everyone has a different setup, so sometimes people have good results from their optimizations and others dont notice any difference (some complain performance gets worse).
I dont have a monster rig, just a i5 3570, HD7950, 16g ram, my game runs fine on med-high settings.

As @Tyger said the game is on special at the moment, so its worth the risk for $20, the game gets better and better, optimizations are getting better, so if anyone here reading this is contemplating getting the game, I say go for it :). Even if you have an average PC there are enough options out there to get your game running good enough for a enjoyable experience.
 

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