Ark: Survival Evolved

Kresslack

Thought I saw a thread for this before, but couldn't find it. Was recently turned on to an alpha version Steam game called Ark. It's basically Minecraft on crack with actual graphics, and dinosaurs, and alien technology. You're dropped of pretty much naked and alone on a prehistoric island with this implant in you, and you have to survive and thrive.

If anyone wants to give it a try, I'll be at this server playing with friends:

http://ark-servers.net/server/7945/

Here's the site for more information on the game:

http://www.playark.com/

And here's a trailer:



If you've played Minecraft, the mechanics are similar. Gather materials, build shelter, get food, stay alive, etc.

Trey

I want to play it, but right now can't afford any really frivolous expenditures, and games fall under that. 

Darktalon

Here is a warning though - If you have only played on official servers then the lag free dinos on a private will be brutal. They hit way more often, so it is much tougher. Which is good, but some people aren't expecting it.

Good game though. Amaranda, Lannah and I have been playing a lot of it.

Edit - Whoever built that huge building on a mountain, in the trailer, should be wiped out by the server. Killed so many spawns for metal!

Kresslack

I enjoy playing on our unofficial private server. It's slowly building up and with the new content becoming a lot of fun. Also, in that trailer, that was likely done on a private server with admin mode. Unlimited supplies via admin controls.

Kresslack

Riding Raptors:



Have to be careful, because there are packs of wild raptors roaming about. Taking to the skys is usually a good mode of travel:



People playing with flares:

Jonathin

I was considering picking this up, but I don't really want to pay $30 for an alpha.

Ahmet

Jonathin said:

I was considering picking this up, but I don't really want to pay $30 for an alpha.

After DayZ standalone? never again.

Leviticus

I said the same thing. No way I am buying this game for 30 bucks. Then I decided fine (cuz I love dino's). It was/is worth every single penny. 180 hours played. I am looking for a good amount of people to play with.I hate offical servers. I spent a week taming and level like 20 dinos to have them killed by offline raiding was such a heartbreak so I only play on unoffical servers.

Kresslack

Daeir said:

It is very, very good. I'm on OC159 with a tribe of friends and we have nearly complete hegemony over the skies.

I ride a 210 argentavis called the Almighty Toucan which can tear apart dinosaurs of all sizes in seconds.

Definitely worth the money, just make sure you play it with friends or join a pubbie tribe - it isn't AT ALL friendly for solo players. Doable, but not friendly.

My thoughts exactly. I was a little iffy shelling out $30 for an Alpha game, but a buddy streamed his gameplay for me and I made up my mind quickly enough. Since they just released their Survival of the Fittest gamemode, they've even put it on sale for 20% off on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110

Leviticus said:

I said the same thing. No way I am buying this game for 30 bucks. Then I decided fine (cuz I love dino's). It was/is worth every single penny. 180 hours played. I am looking for a good amount of people to play with.I hate offical servers. I spent a week taming and level like 20 dinos to have them killed by offline raiding was such a heartbreak so I only play on unoffical servers.

I'm playing with friends on a growing server they started. No off-hour raids (really no raiding at all right now since it just started; giving people time to build). But it's definitely looking for more people and more tribes so that we can work on getting some PvP started. Server info is in the first post. It's PvPvE.

Tael

I gave it a try, but the game ran like molasses on even medium settings - whereas I can usually play anything on the highest settings without any problems.

Thank goodness for Steam returns. I guess I'll give it a try if it ever makes it out of early access and they get around to optimizing it a little bit. Right now, at least with my computer, it's pretty much unplayable.

Kresslack

Tael said:

I gave it a try, but the game ran like molasses on even medium settings - whereas I can usually play anything on the highest settings without any problems.

Thank goodness for Steam returns. I guess I'll give it a try if it ever makes it out of early access and they get around to optimizing it a little bit. Right now, at least with my computer, it's pretty much unplayable.

There are different memory settings you can run on. Most people will start it on Extremely Low Memory and it works fine. I play (right now) with 8gb ram and an Nvidia 635 and it plays just fine, and that's nearly a low end computer. Definitely can't play on a toaster though.

Tael

Kresslack said:

Tael said:

I gave it a try, but the game ran like molasses on even medium settings - whereas I can usually play anything on the highest settings without any problems.

Thank goodness for Steam returns. I guess I'll give it a try if it ever makes it out of early access and they get around to optimizing it a little bit. Right now, at least with my computer, it's pretty much unplayable.

There are different memory settings you can run on. Most people will start it on Extremely Low Memory and it works fine. I play (right now) with 8gb ram and an Nvidia 635 and it plays just fine, and that's nearly a low end computer. Definitely can't play on a toaster though.

I have 16gb of memory, so that was definitely not the issue.

And it's not really a toaster - I was running it on an i7 4770k and a GTX 680 (not brand new, but hardly underpowered) and it was noticeable laggy on medium. It even chugged at points on low.

Kresslack

I'm running it fine on an i5 with 8gb of memory and an Nvidia GForce 635. When you start it up it gives you options to run it on various settings. I'm currently using Extremely Low Memory mode and the game plays fine. Doesn't look half bad either. Soon I'll be doubling my memory and upgrading to the GTX 980 and will be able to play at full settings easily. The card makes a lot of difference.

Mishgul

Tael said:

Kresslack said:

Tael said:

I gave it a try, but the game ran like molasses on even medium settings - whereas I can usually play anything on the highest settings without any problems.

Thank goodness for Steam returns. I guess I'll give it a try if it ever makes it out of early access and they get around to optimizing it a little bit. Right now, at least with my computer, it's pretty much unplayable.

There are different memory settings you can run on. Most people will start it on Extremely Low Memory and it works fine. I play (right now) with 8gb ram and an Nvidia 635 and it plays just fine, and that's nearly a low end computer. Definitely can't play on a toaster though.

I have 16gb of memory, so that was definitely not the issue.

And it's not really a toaster - I was running it on an i7 4770k and a GTX 680 (not brand new, but hardly underpowered) and it was noticeable laggy on medium. It even chugged at points on low.

You might need to disable hyperthreading if you are using an i7

Tael

Mishgul said:

Tael said:

Kresslack said:

Tael said:

I gave it a try, but the game ran like molasses on even medium settings - whereas I can usually play anything on the highest settings without any problems.

Thank goodness for Steam returns. I guess I'll give it a try if it ever makes it out of early access and they get around to optimizing it a little bit. Right now, at least with my computer, it's pretty much unplayable.

There are different memory settings you can run on. Most people will start it on Extremely Low Memory and it works fine. I play (right now) with 8gb ram and an Nvidia 635 and it plays just fine, and that's nearly a low end computer. Definitely can't play on a toaster though.

I have 16gb of memory, so that was definitely not the issue.

And it's not really a toaster - I was running it on an i7 4770k and a GTX 680 (not brand new, but hardly underpowered) and it was noticeable laggy on medium. It even chugged at points on low.

You might need to disable hyperthreading if you are using an i7

Does Ark cause some bizarre problem with hyperthreading?

Mishgul

Hyperthreading sporadically causes issued with random games (usually older ones, or games built on older frameworks). It has something to do with the virtual processor not handling the game properly when the processing load shifts from processor to virtual processer and back again. I think the main solution is to open task manager and set the affinity of the game to a non virtual core. You can google it and look for solutions.

Tael

I haven't had an issue with hyperthreading in a game in literal years. The only one I can think of in recent memory was one of the Battlefield games, but those games are coded using  Shakespeare typewriter monkeys. I googled around and can't find any evidence of anyone having problems with Ark and I already returned it, so I think I'll just await further optimisation.

One other thing I'm curious about though - if anyone is following the devs more closely, does it seem like they actually have a plan for the "finished" version of the game (in the sense that the game is complete, not that they stop working on it or adding things - a 1.0 if you will). That was my other hesitation given that virtually every other survival game in early release remains unfinished - it seems they always build a progression up to a certain point, and then run out of ideas and everyone just tries to content themselves with repetitive, fairly shallow, largely unrewarding (because you're already at endgame) "raiding" of other people's bases.

Jonathin

Once the game hits a later stage, I'll definitely look into getting it and then rebuilding my pc (because this laptop has a Radeon 4500 HD with 512MB of vram).

Kresslack

Tael said:

One other thing I'm curious about though - if anyone is following the devs more closely, does it seem like they actually have a plan for the "finished" version of the game (in the sense that the game is complete, not that they stop working on it or adding things - a 1.0 if you will). That was my other hesitation given that virtually every other survival game in early release remains unfinished - it seems they always build a progression up to a certain point, and then run out of ideas and everyone just tries to content themselves with repetitive, fairly shallow, largely unrewarding (because you're already at endgame) "raiding" of other people's bases.

From what I've seen, especially on official servers, there's no worry about running out of content or gameplay for a very long time. Unofficial servers you'll see people bumping up the resource harvesting to like 3x and the dino taming to like 5x just so they can rush boss content and play around, but on official servers it's all the same level (as far as I know), so it will take anyone hours upon hours just to learn the 'survival ropes' of Ark and not get killed by a roaming raptor or dilo every five minutes.

So far, this game has been one of genuine challenge, which can be frustrating at times, but it's also always providing a challenge and something to aspire to. There are bosses released and still planned for the current map, The Island, but they're also planning other maps as I understand. It's also rumoured there will be the ability to travel between them on a planner level or something along those lines. Either way, I've seen nothing but good things from this, even in Alpha stage.

Aesi

Oh sweet moses this is like Terra Nova the game.

PURCHASING!

Kresslack

Took down a Sarco (crocodile) and are in the process of taming it to help guard our base.




Chris Pratt, eat your heart out.



Home Sweet Home:

Jacen

I'd get it of we did an Achaean private server

Mishgul

I agree with Jacen

Kresslack

If someone wants to set one up, I'll throw money at it and help manage it. I say that because it would have to be a dedicated server hosted off someone's machine, and I don't (currently) have the hardware to accommodate that. More info here:

https://survivalservers.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Create_an_ARK:_Survival_Evolved_Dedicated_Server_Guide

Aesi

VPS would likely be a good choice/fit , I would volunteer some cash to maintain it.

Kresslack

Unpredictibility and frustration and it's finest, just to show the challenge of this game. After spending (a lot of) time taming this Argentavis (basically giant eagle/vulture, really good for hauling stuff or killing things), an alpha raptor came along at the last moment just before the taming process finished and killed it.



Server is staying busy. If anyone cares to join (non-kill on sight and no raiding people who are offline), feel free.

Silas

I had the same problem trying the game with it just absolutely chugging along even on lowest settings. I'll try changing the memory tonight when I get in and see if it plays any less terribly.

Kresslack

This is the menu that should come up before running:



Unless you're running a GTX 900 series or something comparable, probably going to want to go Low Memory or even Extremely Low Memory. I play on the latter with no issues as of yet.

Tael

Kresslack said:

This is the menu that should come up before running:



Unless you're running a GTX 900 series or something comparable, probably going to want to go Low Memory or even Extremely Low Memory. I play on the latter with no issues as of yet.

Your graphics card has absolutely nothing to do with the memory it's talking about here. Unless there's some massive bug in the game, you want to set this depending on how much RAM you have, not what graphics card you have.

Kresslack

Yes, I fully understand that, but after launching the game, it has quite a bit to do with your graphics card. I have 8gb of memory and choose to run it on Extremely Low Memory until I upgrade both my available memory and my graphics card, and I have no issues. I was just offering suggestions based on what's been shown to work from my experience, for the people who still want to give it a try instead of assuming it's automatically an issue with the game (which the global playerbase can already attest is not the case).

Kresslack

Have finally added a Rex to my stable, so to speak.