Community Crunch 432: Fear Ascended, Extra Life, UE 5.4 News, and More!

26 Oct 2024Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

We’re diving into the spooky details of Fear Ascended, providing a live operations update on Aberration transfers, and sharing an update on Unreal Engine 5.4. Plus, we have an exciting announcement about a special guest host joining this year’s Extra Life event!

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The shadows draw closer... Fear Ascended is creeping into ClubARK, and all the eerie goodies—skins, emotes, chibis, and tameable creatures—will haunt ClubARK as rewards! If you’re brave enough to earn a tameable creature through ClubARK events, it will come sealed in a cryopod, ready to be unleashed on your server. Wild event dino colors will bleed through to official servers, adding a ghostly touch to the wilderness.

And for our Unofficial server friends, you can summon Fear Ascended creatures through commands or spawners—if you dare!

10/30/2024 to 11/13/2024

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

Zombie Fire Wyvern
Zombie Lightning Wyvern
Zombie Poison Wyvern
Zomdodo

Skeletal Giga Costume
Skeletal Raptor Costume
Skeletal Rex Costume
Skeletal Stego Costume
Skeletal Trike Costume
Skeletal Wyvern Costume
Ghost Basilisk Costume
Ghost Bulbdog Costume
Ghost Direwolf Costume
Ghost Mantis Costume
Ghost Reaper Costume
Ghost Rex Costume
Dino Witch Hat
Scary Dino Pumpkin Helmet Skin

Weapon

Cleaver (Sword) *new*
Crowbar (Pick) *new*

Armor

Werewolf Costume *new*
Arrow-Head Hat *new*
Axe-Head Hat *new*
Sword-Head Hat *new*
Araneo Swim Bottom Skin
Araneo Swim Top Skin
Basilisk Ghost Costume
Bulbdog Ghost Costume
Clown Mask Skin
Dino Witch Hat Skin
Direwolf Ghost Costume
DodoRex Mask Skin
DodoWyvern Mask Skin
Headless Costume Skin
Hockey Mask Skin
Jack-O-Lantern Swim Bottom Skin
Jack-O-Lantern Swim Top Skin
Jack-O-Lantern-Print Shirt Skin
Mantis Ghost Costume
Onyc Swim Bottom Skin
Onyc Swim Top Skin
Reaper Ghost Costume
Reaper Swim Bottom Skin
Reaper Swim Top Skin
Reaper-Print Shirt Skin
Rex Ghost Costume
Rex Bone Helmet Skin
Scary Pumpkin Helmet Skin
Skeleton Costume
Skele-Print Shirt Skin
Strawman Costume
Snow Owl Ghost Costume
Tentacle-Print Shirt Skin
Trike Bone Helmet Skin
Vampire Dodo Swim Bottom Skin
Vampire Dodo Swim Top Skin
Vampire Eyes Skin
Werewolf Mask Skin
Witch Hat Skin
ZombDodo-Print Shirt Skin
Zombie Wyvern-Print Shirt Skin

Horror Species X *new*
Festive Dino Candy (Dino Candy Corn)
Pumpkin
Scarecrow
Stolen Headstone

Chibi-Skeletal Brontosaurus
Chibi-Skeletal Carno
Chibi-Skeletal Giganotosaurus
Chibi-Skeletal Jerboa
Chibi-Skeletal Quetzal
Chibi-Skeletal Raptor
Chibi-Skeletal Rex
Chibi-Skeletal Stego
Chibi-Skeletal Trike
Chibi-Skeletal Wyvern
Chibi-Ghost Basilisk
Chibi-Ghost Direwolf
Chibi-Ghost Mantis
Chibi-Ghost Rex
Chibi-Spooky Bulbdog

Howl *new*
Sniff *new*
Evil
Panic
Scare

DarkLavender
MediumLavender
WyvernPurple0
DragonFire
Orange
Peach
Green
MediumTurquoise
DarkTeal
DarkBlue
Dino Dark Blue
Blue
ActualBlack
BlackSands
Dark Grey
MediumAutumn
Yellow
DeepPink

A very special guest has joined our lineup—content creator and ARK veteran Raasclark will be shipped in from the UK and going live with us from our Seattle office Saturday, November 2nd at 10AM Pacific for this year’s 24-hour Extra Life event! Join us for an unforgettable stream as Raasclark helps us make a difference for a great cause!

If you are interested in donating, click on the button below! All donations go to the Extra Life organization and contribute to raising the Official Network rates for 24 hours!

DONATE

We will announce all the final details in a future Crunch, but here's a sneak peak of what you can expect:

Reveals of upcoming game content, such as ARK Extinction and Bob's Tall Tales Part 3
Preview of 'ARK Ultimate Mobile Edition' from Grove Street Games
First Looks at ARK The Animated Series Part 2

Stop by on November 2nd and hang out out in our Twitch stream or Discord for an opportunity to win a cool giveaway!

Alternatively, you can join the Studio Wildcard Extra Life Team and help raise money for children in need! By teaming up with us on Extra Life Gameday, not only will you be part of 24 hours of epic reveals, giveaways, and entertainment, but you'll also be giving back to those who need it most!

Transfers on Aberration Official servers will open at 10am PST/1pm EST November 8th allowing players to move items, creatures, and characters onto the map without restriction! Pack your cogs and get your Cosmos ready to explore!

Unreal Engine 5.4 is being pushed back a little bit, but is still well underway. Before we determine a new launch timeframe, let’s give you a little background on this process in the form of an analogy.

Let’s say you have a factory that bakes cakes with many specialized techniques that you designed. Now, this cake factory is a little dated. Fortunately for you, cake making techniques continue to improve, and new methodologies are available to enhance your cake. Seems pretty straightforward, right? But not exactly.

You’re working with a live cake factory; you need to continue making cakes to feed your customers, so you cannot disrupt that process to integrate these improvements. However, you can dedicate a small team to make a new cake factory, based on the original, and incorporate the upgrades.

After some time, the new cake factory has finished with the upgrades. Still, you notice that your specialized techniques that made your cake taste a certain way no longer work, so now you’ve got to spend time fixing all of that while still operating your old cake factory..

This is the stage we’re at. We’ve branched the codebase, completed the upgrade, and are now going through the time-consuming process of ensuring that everything works as expected; this doesn’t just include the old things that are essential to developing ARK and were custom-built but also making sure that the new improvements are functioning as expected within our custom codebase. This impacts how you experience the game (i.e., when we cook out the files, is the gameplay as we expect, are we noticing the performance improvements, has anything new broken?) and also how we experience the editor (are our tools functioning the way we expect them too, can level designers still create volumes, are blueprints cooking, etc.).

So yeah, while we do want to move into the new cake factory, we’re still testing that all components of our cake can be made with the new factory tools and that the cake is still a cake, but better.

It’s pretty lengthy and carries some risk. We could get through it quicker if we put more people onto it, but that adds more risk to the cake we’re giving people now (ASA) and we’ve got a lot of orders lined up for the rest of the year.

So, what’s our new timeline? We believe the safest approach would be to release the engine upgrade to 5.4 (or maybe higher at that point) in Q1 next year. This allows our team to focus on the significant content milestones this year (Extinction, Events, and Wasteland War) and then gently move on to wrapping up the upgrade after the break.

We’re really excited about the upgrade, not only because of the performance improvements but also because it gives us access to better and sharper tools to continue improving the quality of the game. It’s still coming, so hang in there!

TLDR: Cake is on the way, coming to a bakery near you in Q1 2025.

We're working closely with our partners at Nitrado to make the official server saves from our sunsetted servers available soon. We know how much these worlds mean to you, and we're committed to helping preserve your hard-earned progress. Stay tuned for more updates!

On April 8th, we deployed a new type of server across the network (for the various game types) that we refer to as "Expire" (which is what you can search for in the session filter).

These servers will be online until 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on November 15th. We're preemptively using our allocation for Extinction to host some additional sessions that players can travel onto to farm, tame, and experience Aberration Gameplay. The same transfer restrictions apply in that you are only able to download your character, but you can freely take anything off. This is to help reduce load off some of the other servers, or provide players an option for those who just want to jump onto Aberration temporarily.

Please note that these servers will no longer exist after 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on November 15th, so if you intend to use them, remember to transfer your items/creatures/characters off before that date, as nothing will be saved beyond that time period.

Happy 1-year Anniversary to ARK: Survival Ascended!

From dino-mite adventures to reaching new heights as ascended Survivors, it’s been an epic journey, and we’re grateful to have you all along for the ride. As we celebrate this milestone, we’re excited to look toward an even bigger year ahead—one filled with surprises and new discoveries. Here’s to another year of adventure together!

From all of us at Studio Wildcard—thank you, Survivors!

Watch video on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Download & play new custom content created by players, including new maps, creatures, items, and game modes, through a dedicated new Mod-browser directly within the game. Enjoy an endless stream of new ARK content as the creativity and talent of the community is fully unleashed for the first time across gaming platforms and stay tuned as we spotlight more Cross-Platform Mods each week!

This video features:

MSVV Halloween by Deckard
H&N Wicked Wardrobe by TheNokosa
Randis Halloween Mod by Randi_Beers
Skin Cosmetics Klinger Reinforced Concrete by klingerMartins

This weekend, the Official Network will be receiving bonus rates! It will be active until Monday, October 28.

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

Fan Art Gallery | Screenshot Gallery | Artist Feedback Form

Player's creativity, passion, and, love for this lil' dinosaur game inspire us daily. It’s awesome to see what ARK sparks in you—be it art, mods, or stories that capture the spirit of our shared world. The talent of this community is next level, and witnessing your creations and passion reminds us why we push the boundaries of ARK’s universe.

Creator: Raasclark feat. Haitch
Raasclark and Haitch attempt to tame their very first dragon on ARKpocalypse without a HUD!

Watch video on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Creator: Kittykatlapurr
Kittykatlapurr is taking us on an adventure to find Basilisks on Aberration in Ark Survival Ascended. They are a rare sight to see but can be found in all zones.

Watch video on YouTube (opens in a new tab)