Community Crunch 434: Dreadnoughtus Reveal, LiveOps Update, and More!

16 Nov 2024Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Stomping into the post-apocalyptic chaos of Extinction, the Dreadnoughtus is as unstoppable as its name suggests. Towering above the fray, this behemoth exudes an aura of calm that contradicts its immense power. It’s a creature that doesn’t bother with the small stuff—literally—ignoring anything beneath the size of a Spinosaur to focus its wrath on worthy adversaries. When it bellows, the air itself seems to tremble, unleashing a sound so forceful it disrupts the very essence of Element, leveling the playing field against even the fiercest Titans. If you’re preparing for war, the Dreadnoughtus is the ally you need—a towering testament to survival against the odds.

The Dreadnoughtus is set to join ARK: Survival Ascended for free on December 16th, along with Extinction. It’s the fourth community-voted creature introduced in ASA. Speaking of community votes—get ready to get creative and make your voice heard again! We’ll soon begin the next creature vote to decide which prehistoric beast will roam Valguero next year.

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We’re very happy to share that we have resolved the client stall/freeze associated with the dynamic loading of mods on consoles and this is currently going through certification with Sony and Microsoft (alongside Cryopods checks being disabled in Single Player) and we’re hoping to release this update early next week once it clears certification! In the meantime, disabling “Dynamic Downloads” in the options menu remains a workaround to avoid stalls, though it will prevent dynamically downloaded cosmetics from loading.

As you may have noticed, the most recent console patch also increased the amount of mod storage space available from 20gb to 50gb on Xbox. We’re also planning to do a similar increase for PlayStation, though it likely won't be available until early next year.

The storage space change requires a larger engineering lift for PlayStation, requiring some core technology updates due to some requirements so it’s going to take us a bit more time. On Xbox, the increase was just a simple value change, making it an easy choice to roll out now. We appreciate your patience and look forward to bringing this upgrade to PlayStation as soon as the technical groundwork is in place!

Now onto the remaining events this year, we’ve got some good news and some not so good news. The good news is we really heard you when it comes to running events on the main game and not keeping them exclusive to Club ARK, so we’ll be adjusting our pipeline so that going forward, events will be represented in the main game and designed to work across multiple maps when possible.

But, given our team’s tight schedule, this Turkey Trial will be limited in that we’ll be increasing the rates on servers and doing wild dino colors but there won’t be any existing or new content. Just to provide some additional clarity, re-using the old event from last year isn’t technically feasible without significant effort due to a refactor that took place earlier this year for the newer events, this means that there won’t be any Murder Turkeys on the ARK this year.

While the Thanksgiving feast may be leaner this year, we’re cooking up something special to satisfy your holiday cravings soon so rest assured, we’re still planning on doing a Winter Wonderland event and hope to have it represented in both the base game, as well as Club ARK, with some new content, colors, and rates!

We’re incredibly proud to share a special message we received from Children’s Miracle Network following this year’s Extra Life Game Day. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity and support of the ARK community, over $116,000 was raised, making Studio Wildcard the highest fundraising individual team during Game Day weekend!

Together, we’ve helped make a real difference in the lives of the 12 million children and their families who rely on these hospitals every year.

This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without YOU, our amazing community, whose generosity and dedication inspire us every day. Thank you for tuning in and contributing to an effort we’re humbled to help facilitate.

The power of gaming communities is unstoppable, and, together, we’re changing kid’s health to change the future!

This weekend, the Official Network will be receiving bonus rates! It will be active until Monday, November 18.

PVP/PVE: 2x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience, and Breeding
Small Tribes: 4.5x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience + 4x Breeding
ARKpocalypse: 5x Harvesting, Taming and Experience, and Breeding

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Creator: Boomsmith
Have you ever played ASA, and wondered what unconventional dinos you could use to beat the bosses? In this limited series, Boomsmith dusts off rarely thought-about tames and puts them to the test!

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Creator: Syntac
Syntac attempts to traverse the jungle with his trusty Parasaur and Raptor to reach his new base location, but things do not go as smoothly as he planned.

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