Latest Misadventures in Ark Survival Evolved

By Bixyl Shuftan

It's been over a year since I've written about Ark: Survival Evolved, the noted survival game in which players start off with their undies and their wits on a mysterious island populated with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, and try to avoid dying from hunger, heat and cold, and the numerous predators whom see players as a snack. I first wrote about the game in July 2015, and did so again in August and September of that year. For those brand new to the game, you can read those articles, or watch this video review by "Nooblets" (link).

One of the game's most important news items over the past year was not an update, but a lawsuit. A former member of the development team had been accused of violating a clause of his contract, and filed suit for $600 million USD. The defendant threatened to have a legal notice to take down the game, which caused concerns the game might not be available for sale, or updated for those who had it, for a while. Eventually, the case was settled out of court for $40 million.

Recently, my friends of the "Furry Gamers" group decided to take another look at it, Nydia starting up her server again. She and her friends had previously made a number of bases across the south and east of the island, some along the coast, some a bit inland. Her main base was in the southwest, in the middle of what the map calls the "Southern Jungle." A year ago, it had been a relatively safe location, the only real problems when the occasional carnotaurus, or "Carno," one of the island's medium sized predators showed up. But the island has changed since then, some of which meant complications for us.

To begin with, the island has a couple new biomes. Swampland now covers some territory in the inland south, and a small part of the midwest coast. As you can probably guess, these are not places for beginners, and midranked ones should proceed with caution. The giant dragonflies and ants will swarm after you, the snakes will try to paralyze and eat you, and in the water are the megaphirana and the bloodsucking leeches. One curious but useful crtter are the giant frogs or beelzebufo. They eat the giant insects which can pester players, and can serve as high-jumping mounts. In the northwest and north central areas are icy areas covered with snow. Fur clothing is needed to survive the cold here for long, which will likely mean lingering on the outskirts to hunt for creatures that drop pelts, such as mammoths and woolly rhinos. This is also the home of dire wolves, canis maxdirus. As they hunt in packs, they can be dangerous predators. But they can also be valuable mounts.

There are new creatures outside these areas too. One is the Therizinosaurus, which my friends have dubbed the "killer turkeys." These medium sized dinos are plant eaters, but highly aggressive ones that will attack anyone getting too close. To make matters worse, these creatures sport long claws that would make Freddy Krueger proud, capable of piercing armor and inflicting serious wounds that can quickly take down a player. A group of two to three can be dangerous or fatal even for a player on a tamed carno mount.

Another problem dinosaur is the Troodon. Somewhat smaller than raptors, they are in some ways more dangerous. They have a venomous bite, and combined with their speed will quickly take down a beginning player, and fighting them while I was around Level 20-25, I would end up lasting just long enough to clobber one before passing out, vulnerable to anything else in the area. And as they sometimes go about in packs, this often means other Troodon, who made quick work of any one unconscious. They are nocturnal, making any night run more dangerous, as you may not notice their glowing eyes, until it's too late. That you can occasionally find eyeglasses on a corpse is a little unnerving.

Between the "killer turkeys" and the "sleepers," life at what had been our main base became more hazardous. A new fish, the sabertooth salmon, was easily avoided by us, but did clobber a critter or two of ours that ventured into the water next to the base. Finally when a few of the former managed to break down a wooden wall and kill several of our dinos before finally being taken down, the decision was made to move. So we began moving our critters to the nearby "Footpaw," settling in the plateau in the middle overlooking the rest known as the "Weathertop." We began building a wall to help keep out unwanted critters, though began noticing a few were spawning inside. The decision was made to persist, taming more critters to replace what was lost and to help patrol the place, a lot of dilos designated as "meat shields" as they were more easily replaced. This "Liberty Ship" strategy, so named as it reminded me of the United States having to replace it's cargo ships blown up by German U-Boats in the early days of WW2 with quickly made Liberty Ships until it could come up with better ways of fighting the enemy, was more than a little frustrating as our plans and building was slowed down. But eventually we had our base and fence.

But not everything new was out to get us. Jasmine found some dung beetles in a cave and tamed a group. This meant a source of fertilizer and oil as long as we kept feeding them droppings from our dinos, the oil saving us trips to the sea and its dangers. There was also a new kind of building available: the greenhouse. Building one provides a place for crops to grow faster.

However the greenhouse parts need crystal. In earlier times, this would have meant a flight over to bypass the dangerous critters on the ground. But there's a new threat in the air now. There's a large bird called Argentavis that while usually a carrion eater is aggressive and will attack nearby players. On the plus side, when tamed it has more stamina than pteranodons, and can be used to grip other players (useful for getting someone unconscious out of danger), or critters that aren't too heavy. A leveled-up Argentavis can be very useful for transportation, or getting smaller creatures you want to tame as they can be dropped into an enclosure until you're ready to tranq and feed them.

Exploring around, our journeys took us to "Herbivore Island" in the southeast. Accessible by raft or air, it's a place where players need not worry about carnivores, though the creatures there will still defend themselves if attacked. To our surprise and delight, we found some metal nodes there. This saved us risky trips to the mountaintops, though we still had to go there for obsidian and crystal, and we set up a refining base where we could make and haul back metal. We discovered that besides placing storage boxes on our wooden rafts, we could also place ramps, foundations, and walls. We turned two in to mobile bases, one which had storage space, a furnace, smithy, and a few mortal and pestles, the other which had large holding areas for luring larger creatures on which we were interested in taming. This included one T-Rex which we started taming on it's journey back, and once finished it was just a short walk from the shore to the case.

We've also tried our hand at raising baby dinos a little. Hatching one took a while and was something of a balancing act as the temperature had to be just right, requiring a heat source nearby to be turned on and off. But eventually, the critter hatched (check about 4:10 into the video). Nydia had to imprint on it, and then feed it a few berries. Later on, a special egg hatching area would be build with both campfires and air conditioners.

One recent change to the game was that hair is no longer static, but will grow over time. And after the update, the men in the server found themselves looking like mountain men with bushy beards, and once the hats were off with mops of hair. The women had long hair, but thankfully their legs were spared. Getting rid of the beards required learning the engram for scissors, and with those equipped, press and hold the right button, and a hairsyling screen comes up, in which men and lower the length of their head hair and beards, or cut everything altogether. Women only have the option to cut head hair. As the hair will still grow over time, don't throw away your scissors as you're likely to need them every day or two. They're also useful for cutting the fleece of a new animal on the island: sheep. So once "ewe" get past the "ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad" jokes, the wool can be used as a substitute for pelts, which can make the making of cold weather clothing a lot easier.

One new thing I've heard of but haven't tried yet is fishing. From what I saw in this "nooblets" video (link), one needs either tree sap or leech blood as bait, the latter which more fish will go after. Besides fish meat, one can apparently get a few other items, but high level players whom aren't risk adverse should be able to get most of them faster by other means except black pearls.

And there are other new critters that I haven't mentioned yet, such as giant beavers which do well at gathering wood, as well as being the only creatures besides players that build something: beaver dams, compys, little dinos that are slightly dangerous in packs, but can be tamed to be a kind of shoulder pet, Procoptodon, a kind of giant kangaroo, Paracers, which look like a giant cross between a horse and rhino, dire bears, woolly rhinos, and moose. There's also new items that I have yet see, such as lances for jousting, and high tech armor, which needs players to beat one of the "boss" creatures just to get one of the needed components. The boots would be very useful as they allow players to avoid taking damage when accidentally falling. The helmets provide unlimited oxygen when underwater and night vision, a GPS, and a targeting system that locates other players nearby. The chestpeice has a jetpack, and so on.

I should also note there's a new map available, "The Center," which would be an interesting change for players whom feel they've been on The Island to the point most every place is familiar. Instead of the dinosaurs being easiest on the beaches and getting more difficult as you go to the interior, it's more east to west on this map. The map started out as a mod, but has become an official part of the game. Another noteable mod that's gotten some attention is the Pokemon-inspired mod called "Pokemon Evolved." But as Pokemon is the property of Nintendo, which has demanded some fanworks be taken down before, it's unknown if the mod will be up indefinitely.

There is also a new version of Ark, "Scorched Earth" which takes place in an arid area where water is difficult to come by, sandstorms can damage outdoor equipment and some structures, electrical storms can shut down electrical equipment and disable firearms. This hostile place has many of the same creatures, such as the raptors and T-Rexes. But there are some new ones such as rock elementals, deathworms, thorny dragons, and others. But not everything is big and out to kill you. The place is also home to jerboas, which are really cute companions and useful as weather detectors. Then there are the whips, flamethrowers, boomerangs, and chainsaws. Sadly the game isn't free for those who already have Ark, but an expansion pack that has to be bought in addition to the game. There are also plans for an "Ark Park" virtual reality similator; an obvious take on "Jurassic Park." Hopefully their lawyers got the okay from Michael Crichton.

Earlier I've commented Nydia and a number of the Furry Gamers will have nothing to do with PvP-enabled servers. While there may be some where most of the players are friendly, going there as it's easier to find a place to build, there are some goons whose primary pleasure in life is making others miserable. "Nooblets" made a video commentary about a recent update that made it easier for high level PvP tribes to jump server to server, so they could potentially settle on a new world, wiping out all the smaller tribes and making themselves the only ones on the place, then once it's clear everyone else has fled going to another PvP server and starting over again, repeating the cycle of wiping everyone else out. This in his opinion would eventually be "The Death of Ark," at least for PvP servers.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HyLhdBCcixY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Well, that's it for now with the latest misadventures of me and the Furry Gamers in Ark. We'll leave you with this video Nydia did of her ark server. As she would say, "good gaming to you."


Sources: eTeknix, Gamerant,

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Universe in Ark

While the Second Life "Furry Gamers" have been walking with dinosaurs in "Ark Survival Evolved" (when not riding or running from), it seems another group of residents from the grid has given the game a try. Readers may be familiar with the Second Life Universe Forums, the most widely used forums aimed at Second Life residents besides the official Linden ones. Sometimes irreverent, sometimes very useful, one thing they seldom are is boring, having a cast of posters whom have been at it for as long as ten years.

Well, as it turns out, they have their own Ark server. Nytewitch, as she's known on the forums, invited any forum user access to her server, though they needed to ask her for the password. Known as the SLUvivors, they've created a main base overlooking the middle of the island's east coast, and several smaller bases some distance to the north and south. Interested on checking things for myself, I asked Nytewitch, or Wytch as she's called in the game, for the password, and got it.

Logging in, I had some minor trouble getting started, but was soon going about my business on this server for the first time. As it turned out, Wytch happened to be on. After some chat, she invited me to her base. She found me just after I found the water pipe to it and beat off an attack by two dilos. She had come over on a pteradactyl with another following, and invited me to fly over. So I did, but apparently I attracted the attention of a dragonfly. Maybe it smelled the blood from the fight, but it went after me.

The SLUvivors' main base had a building, a garden, and a yard full of dinos from trikes to raptors and others, including a sabertooth tiger. I landed, and the bug attacked me. And the dinos all went after it. It was quite a scene, described in the forums:

Yesterday when Bixyl was in, a dragonfly flew in the base and started a dino riot. Took ages to untangle them and a dilo jumped the fence, the T Rex got outside, and Miss Horny laid an egg. After that I put them on passive except for my nasties.

As Wytch later put it, worthy of a country music song. Guess I make quite an entrance where I go.

I didn't see the Rex until later. And when I did, I'd gotten my first T-Rex ride outside of Second Life.

* * * * *

Back in Lomgren's server, the Second Life microkitty continues to make progress on his own server. He leveled enough to learn how to make a generator, and before long there were electric lights around his base as well as refrigerators. "We're almost civilized," the 6 inch microkitty turned 5 foot human commented. It wasn't hard to imagine survivors having spent months in primitive conditions being overwhelmed at the sight of electric power.

But electricity takes power. And the source of power for modern equipment is oil. While some can be gathered from the trilobites that occasionally make their way onto the beach, the real source is oil deposits from the sea. To get at those, you need water based mounts, such as the dolphin-like Ichthyosaurus and the huge Megalodon sharks. To house them, Lom made a water base that looked like a pier area. To stay underwater for long, one needs to have a serving of "Lazarus chow," which slows down the need of oxygen.

So what have I done? Mostly level up by making narcotics (for the dinos, not us). But I have started work on a bridge from the Footpaw where the base is to the Southern Jungle. Lom and I sometimes notice drops way off to across the wide river, and are miffed at not being able to get the high ones because water has sharks and phirana. So far, the bridge is  almost halfway across (progress made since the picture to the left, with no interruptions by sharks (yet). But eventually we'll have our feat of engineering.

As for the two public servers I was in, I kept dying off in the Player vs Environment one, so have OC Official Server 160 another try. I made my way to the Footpaw and found the place where Lom set his base unoccupied, and started work on a base there. So far, most of my encounters with neighbors have been friendly ones, but there have been a couple of raids, so there are some pirates out there, and more work to do on the base.

The adventures continue.

Bixyl Shuftan

Further Adventures in Ark Survival Evolved

By Bixyl Shuftan

Since we last wrote about Ark, there's been a few more goings on with the game. The game has been updated some, plus me and my Second Life friends have been having a few adventures with it.

One thing I should have known early on but didn't notice was that just as in real life, leather armor, as well as chittin armor, has the downside of making you overheat on a hot day. So you'll likely want to carry around some cloth clothes in addition to better protective ones to wear once it gets hot and you're not about to get into a fight.

A few more creatures have been added, or are just about to be. One a kind of monkey whose only practical function is making a lot of noise when hostiles show up, but some feel they make a cute pet. Another is a kind of trilobite that is a good source of chittin for making armor, and gives a little oil, which can be used to make gasoline for higher tech machines, at least the one I clobbered did. The new creatures that I have encountered the most are the giant bugs, dragonflies and the Titanomyra, or giant ant. Dragonflies are described as not normally attacking players, but it's my experience they sometimes do.

The giant ants are the bigger threat to players and come in two varieties, drones and soldiers. Drones scurry about on the ground while the soldiers are winged. Both will attack a player if he/she strays near, and their bites will poison, lowering the stamina. An attack by just a few drones is easily dealt with an axe or pickaxe if that's the only threat, but an assault by a number of soldiers, often in combination with drones, can be a real problem. If an axe or pickaxe is your only weapon, you can quickly become tired from swinging it around, and a few bites will put you asleep, rendering you helpless as the bugs slowly eat you alive. Backing away with a spear, or even better a pike, seems to be the best method for dealing with their assaults. But being overwhelmed by a swarm of a dozen, especially in the dark, can really hurt you, if not kill you. Once dispatched, they can be harvested for chitin and meat. In one server I had a survivor in, it took a while to get resources from them. Maybe they are hard to harvest, or perhaps it was a "bug" in the system. Someone in chat thought that chopping at them when crouched makes harvesting slightly faster, but I haven't noticed a difference. Still, there are rewards from these killer insects once dispatched.

The bugs are usually encountered in the forest, so making a run to a supply drop into the woods at night just became extra hazardous. It isn't just players they go after. I've seen them attack raptors, which became increasingly red from blood from their bites as they struggled against the bugs, then died and were eaten up before the attackers went after me. I've also encountered a T-Rex corpse in which investigating it, was attacked by ants that were around it. The mighty T-Rex felled by bugs? Perhaps a little more tweaking with these fearsome insects is needed.

Speaking of bugs, one of my pet peeves in the game is how the quirky physics act on a dino once you've killed it. Dilo and dodo bodies can sometimes be hurled a good distance away once the killing blow is made. There have been times, especially at night, when I've had to give up looking for one of their corpses and move on. So if you're hunting at night, be sure after your killing blow (or last killing blow if you ran into a pack) switch to your torch immediately. On the plus side, the bug can work in your favor in the water as I've seen megaphirana jump out of the water near the shore, and just hang in the air. Often they're dead. Did my spear deliver the killing blow, or did the bug hurt them. I have yet to find out.

My first exploration into the game was in "The OC Official Server 160," which turned out to be a PvP server, not knowing what "OC" meant. After learning more about the game, I avoided the more populated eastern coast and settled into a couple spots in the west, eventually making a good-sized base made of stone walls. After I'd gotten it a decent size, I went to concentrate on a Player vs Environment server I found in case friends wanted to try that. But I would still log on briefly every day or two to make sure nothing decayed. Then one day, I logged in to fin out I'd been killed and had to respawn elsewhere. Heading back to the base site, I found it was gone with nothing left, and I mean *nothing.* Not even a single floor section, or even the campfire that was nearby.

Confused, I entered group chat, asking if there was a bug in the game erasing people's builds. I was told that there wasn't, that what happened was likely the Method of Operation of a particularly ruthless tribe using demo charges (apparently one can make those when they get high enough). They didn't just break in and raid, but would blow up a base *completely.*

A tribe could rebuild pretty quickly. Not so much a lone wolf like me. So I dropped off that server for a while. Nydia's advice of "STAY AWAY FROM PVP SERVERS, THE KIDDIES WILL KEEP KNOCKING YOU DOWN" seemed to be confirmed. But then one gaming review I came across described a PvP enabled server in which the players didn't have the stomach for it, instead greeting everyone hello and even giving newcomers a few things to help them out. Another reviewer got a much more hostile response. Half the people he encountered while knew knocked him out and stole what little he had on him. Different servers seem to have different casts of characters, it seems. Even in the PvP servers, my biggest problem were the dinos and bugs, not other players. But it took just one tribe of hostiles to take down hours of work on my base.

There was still Nydia's server, but the problem with private servers is they go offline when the owner's computer does. So I hung around the PvE server some more, "PVE Official Server 37." I had set camp a mile up the river on a spot in the southeast, and began building up the base as it was close to a few crate drop areas. By now, it sports a smelter and blacksmith table, out in the open for anyone to use, and a crate near a door to drop shirts and simple tools newcomers dropping by might need. Exploring further, building a few secondary bases. But even PvE servers aren't without troublemakers. Once when I left a door open, I returned and saw a newbie run out. He'd raided my preserving bin!! Another time, the would be thief wasn't so lucky. I closed the doors before she got out, and I wouldn't let her out until I was sure nothing was gone from the bin.

Lomgren also decided to get a private server. Taking a look at the southern part of the island, which has rivers cutting through it to form smaller islands, he found a spot near the mid southern coast in what some call "The Footpaw" (see map near the end). on a hill overlooking a bluff next to an inlet that was relatively safe from the big predators. Below we set up a small farm to raise crops such as narcoberries, and nearby a small coop for dodo birds, which were good for eggs. The riding dinos were parked nearby, which doubled as a source of manure for fertilizer for the crops. Lomgren would later modify the top as a landing bay for tamed pteras. As this was the floor with the beds, it's not hard to imagine the characters trying to sleep while the "birds" make a racket.

As Lomgren was a much higher level than I was when I first came to his server, I looked for something to do besides build his base. Scouting around, I found a tiny island in a riverway not too far inland from Lom's base. So I began making one of my own, there. One complication was as it was further inland, larger carnivores would on occasion come near, notably the huge spinosaurs, distinguished by their huge size and sails on their backs. Once I took one down, though it took a lot of arrows and my base getting roughed up a bit. And the yield was only a few scraps of leather. Probably a fluke, but quite a disappointment. Another time, a Spino got too close to the farm area of the main base. From the safety of the bluff, we brought it down with tranquilizer arrows, then proceeded to tame it. Without the prized "prime meat," it took a long time and lots of meats and narcotics to tame. But the result was a guard dino that would keep watch over our farm (as well as helping to fertilize it a bit).

One of the most interesting times in Lom's server was when a few people were on at once, and  someone took down a T-Rex with tranq arrows. So others flew over on tamed Pteras and began the process of taming the huge beast, with lots of narcotics and meats. We also tranqed a couple other pteras, so we had a "triple taming." Unfortunately, while two of us went back for more meat and narcotics, a second T-Rex showed up. The two of us remaining had to run for it, and when it lost interest in us, it went back to chow down on the sleeping pteras. The others returned to take care of it, so we were able to finish taming our own T-Rex. Once that was done, we were able to walk it home, it making a meal out of any dilo that went after us.

After Lomgren leveled up his best Pteranodon, or "pteras" as they've come to be called in the game, he began exploring around. Finding a good source of ore on a volcano in the middle of the island, with a little crystal and obsidian, he established a small mining base. Flying to it takes a ptera that's been leveled up in weight and stamina. Yours truly has been trying to overcome his nervousness of flying, often by flying over a river in case I accidentally press the "E" button, which for mounts is the mount/dismount action. But the view is spectacular.

Going about, I've been noticing the value of having a tamed dino help you out. So in Lomgren's private server I helped things out by taming a raptor when the opportunity came about. As mounts, raptors are pretty quick and can hold a little before slowing down. But theyre not unbeatable, so when having one at your side be careful when engaging packs of carnivores. I might have been a little lucky when taming the dino in the private server as I had plenty of narcotics on hand and was able to get plenty of fish. When I tried taming something in the PvE server, I only had a little meat on me and wasn't able to find any fish or prey animals nearby.

After this happened three times, I came across a triceratops that had been knocked unconscious by a giant scorpion. Feeding that one berries, I tamed it after a bit more than half an hour. But as it was still a bit low on HP, it was still a bit vulnerable. Getting it to home base, we were attacked by giant ants, not a few but about a dozen. They killed the trike and went after me. Then I found a raptor that was so busy going after a herbivorous dino, it didn't notice me sneak up on it, and after a few tranquilizer arrows, it was down. It took over an hour, but I had finally tamed a raptor after three unsuccessful times! I then took it home, and going after a nearby "piggy" for meat, we were attacked by more bugs. We got all of them, but one of the flying soldier ants had bitten the raptor to death before I could get it.

So five taming attempts with nothing to show for it. Maybe some lone wolves are just meant to go about on foot.

In the past few days, I've been hearing about a few other creatures introduced. One is the gigantosaurus, a huge carnivorous beast described as having a rage makes it more difficult to tame than a T-Rex or Spinosaur, and if tamed can be difficult to control in a PvP fight. Then there's the dung beetle, which supposedly when tamed can be a source of fertilizer and oil. Then there are the "Alphas," which are dinosaurs that are much stronger than normal, and more difficult to take down, identified by the red cloud among them. They also can inflict more damage to buildings, including stone and metal. So far, all that I've heard about in game chat are carnivores, T-Rexes, carnies, raptors, etc.

Nydia's been starting her own server up again, so I may soon have some adventures to write about there. In the meantime, still building up that secondary base in Lom's server, and still trying to tame a beastie of my own in PvE 37. If anyone wants to be in Lomgren Small's server, ask him. If you want to see my main base in PVE Official Server 37, it's around 78 Latitude, 64.5 Longitude in the Southern Inlets (see below). If you go about on the coast, it's on the river with a sign marking the original base of one of the server's tribes. If I'm not there, you may want to stop by anyway to use the forge and smithy. But I may move to the shore once I've tamed something again. Those killer bugs are proving to be just too much. And then there's OC Official Server 160. Would taming something be easier there?

To help you get around, here's a map of the various regions and underwater caves, created by "Felski." You can see a larger image of the map (here). For those starting out, here's a map of the starting locations (here). Having been to Craggs Island, it's appropriately named as not much grows there. I have yet to head to "Dead Island" as without a water or flying mount, you're shark bait, and once you get there, word has it the high level predators will make short work out of any player whom isn't also high level, unless he had plenty of help.

Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: Ark - Survival Evolved

By Bixyl Shuftan

The latest game that my friends have gotten into is one called "Ark: Survival Evolved." It could be thought of as "Rust meets Jurrasic Park." Like Rust, one is in the wild, gathering food and crafting resources from wood, rocks, and other resources around him to build weapons, clothes, and shelter. Unlike Rust, instead of an abandoned series of buildings, you're on a primeval looking island filled with dinosaurs, which can be tamed, but any wild meat eater is going to go after you for a snack.

The timing of the game's release was certainly noteable, right about the time the movie "Jurassic World," the latest of the "Jurassic Park" sequels was released in theaters. Like Linden Lab's choice of a velociraptor as it's freebie birthday avatar, it's obvious this was no coincidence, but to take advantage of the resulting "dino-mania." So far, it's worked, with PC Gamer reporting a million copies of the game sold in less than a month.

To begin with, once you log on a server, you're asked to customize your character, male/female, height, build, skin color, etc. This is purely cosmetic and won't affect your strength or running speed. Once that's done. you're shown an outline of the island, and asked to pick a zone to spawn on. Once you choose one, you wake up to a flash of light, and find yourself on a beach. One will find most other players traveling on or near the beach, and the creatures here are mostly less dangerous than those inland, mostly. Typically there's just almost all herbivores such as triceratops, along with a few dodo birds, with the most dangerous thing being a dilo, which you should be able to beat once you have a pickaxe or hatchet (better weapons are preferred, such as spears). Unfortunately larger predators on occasion make their way to shore, so if you see big feathered birds, raptors, or what looks like a T-Rex, avoid it if you can, and run if you can't (press the Shift key while moving forward to run) Low level players without weapons who can't get away will end up lunch (Insert "Barney" parody music - "I eat you, you feed me .."). Be careful of any scorpions you see as a few stings are enough to put you to sleep, and you can only watch as the bug slowly eats your character alive.

The island is a strange mix of the prehistoric with strange futuristic technology. You begin with a strange implant in your arm. Around the island are strange alien-looking monoliths. One can help you save your character and transfer to another server. Beyond that, supposedly there are secrets to discover later in the game.

Your first concerns, besides avoiding danger, are getting some basic tools. To get stones off the ground, press "E" to collect some. To get wood and thatch, without a tool one has to punch tree trunks, either live ones or dead ones lying on the ground. This will damage you a bit, costing some health points. But when you have nothing, this is the only way you can get wood and thatch. To make your first tool, a pickaxe, you'll need one stone, one piece of wood, and ten thatch.

A level one player isn't able to build much, just a pickaxe and a torch. You'll But it isn't long before you level. Once that happens, you can increase an attribute, such as the amount of weight you can carry, running speed, stamina, etc. Then you get an amount of points to spend on "Engrams," or skills. Now you can learn how to make a stone hatchet. You'll need to use your pickaxe on a rock to get a piece of flint, along with the piece of wood and ten thatch to make it. Something else you'll want to learn is how to make a campfire (if you see one someone else made nearby, you can wait a little to learn to make one). Other skills for your first few levels include cloth clothing, and thatch building parts. Doing actions can help you level faster. Just going around gathering things such as stones, fibers, and berries, can help you level fairly quickly early on.

When night falls, it's not quite as hazardous as "Rust" as you can still see a little, especially when the moonlight isn't obscured by trees and other large objects. But still it's possible for a player to run into a predator or a pack of them, especially if running. The terrain is uneven, so running at night over unfamiliar ground could get you falling off a cliff if you're not careful.

Both the pickaxe and hatchet can be used on trees, rocks, and dead critters, as well as close range weapons. But they yield different amounts of resources. For instance when building, using the pickaxe will yield more thatch then pieces of wood than if you use the hatchet. The pickaxe will get you more flint than stone from rocks. And if you're harvesting the body of a dead critter, a hatchet will yield more hide than if you use a pickaxe.

Once you have a stone pickaxe and hatchet, along with maybe a torch if it's night, its time to get some food. To get berries from bushes, along with fibres press "E." Of the six kinds of berries you'll find, three are good as food. Stimberries will help keep your torpor, or how easy you can slip into unconsciousness, down. One will help you with cooking later, Narcoberries will just put you to sleep. Each berry will help with food and thirst slightly. When your food and water levels run out, you will begin to starve and dehydrate and lose health points. Once your health reaches zero, your character will die and you'll have to respawn. If it rains, your character automatically hydrates when in the open. If you plan to be active, running, fighting, chopping wood, etc, stay near some water. Don't go too deep in the water as there may be a shark waiting for you. Rivers may have mega-piranha, so you have to be careful there too. If a school homes in on you in the middle of a big stream, you're in deep trouble.

Besides thirst and hunger, heat and cold are also problems. If you're too hot, you will sweat and lose water faster. If you're too cold, you'll burn up food faster. If you're *really* hot or cold (a larger flame symbol or your snowflake turning into an ice cube on your HUD), you'll start loosing health points as well. Getting in water can help keep you cool if you're hot, but conversely can be bad for you if it's getting cold. Clothes, torches, and campfires, can help keep you warm. Buildings help insulate against temperature extremes. There's also an energy meter. If you run for too long, it runs out, and you have to stop to catch your breath. While you're swimming, it runs down very slowly. If your energy level reaches zero while you're swimming, you're in danger of drowning.

Since berries help with hunger only a little, you'll probably want some meat. As some objects need hide, such as shoes and gloves, that's a second reason to do some hunting. Dodos are ideal for beginning players as they don't fight back, but clumsily waddle away, and after a few hits they're as "dead as a dodo." You may find fish in shallow waters and rivers for meat, though the problem with mega-piranha is obvious. Once you have a couple spears, you can go after the lowest level predator, the dilophosaur, or "dilo" as they're called in the game. The problem with them is they can spit venom at you and blind your vision. But if you're not fighting a pack, you shouldn't have too much trouble. As you progress higher, you'll be able to make hide clothing, which protects more than cloth.

Different dinos require different tactics to fight. Raptors can be a challenge as they like to zip around and attack you from the side. I had to keep backing up to avoid getting flanked when fighting one (if near a cliff, turning away first). When attacked by a croc, my strategy was to flank it by going to the side and spear it in the ribs, taking advantage of it's slower turning ability, taking care *not* to get caught in it's enormous jaws. After some time at this, had a load of hide and meat on my hands.

Eventually you're going to need a home base to both store items as well as a place to safely leave your character when you log off as anyone left out in the open is liable to be found by a predator (or a hostile player in PvP servers). Building just the base and four walls without a roof won't guarantee 100% safety as a low flying monster bird or large carnivore walking nearby can spot your sleeping body. At first, you'll be limited to building thatch buildings. But they're not very strong, and can be torn up by a large carnivore that sees you run into one for refuge ("Little pig, little pig, let me in!"). So eventually you'll want to learn and build wooden building parts. When gathering items while making a wooden building, you can become encumbered quickly. So you may want to build some parts while in the field to lighten your load.

Once you have a building set up, you're going to want to build some things to help you out, such as storage boxes to keep stuff in, and a sleeping bag or bed to ensure you respawn in the shelter if killed, the former being one-use only. As you progress, you can make a preserving bin to slow the decay of meat and fruit you collect, a mortar and pestle to make ingredients, a forge and smithy to make metal tools, and more. You'll also be able to learn and make stone and metal building parts, making your home safe from wild dinos, and in PvP servers resistant to all but the most determined raids.

You might not have to make everything. On various spots on the island, beacons will shine and a crystalline supply crate will slowly float to the ground. In contrast to "Rust," supply crates are easy to see, so it's not as hard finding them. One will still have to contend with any predators nearby, as well as any hostile players in PvP servers. They are color coded, with white being lootable by anyone level three and up, green for those level 15 and over, blue for those 25 and up, with higher ones being purple, yellow, and red, which is accessible only to those level 60 and higher. White supply crates will typically deliver thatch building parts, cloth clothes, or simple tools and raw materials. Green will get you wooden parts and hide clothing.

Besides hunting dinos, one can also tame them. They can help you go around faster, notably those that can fly, help you haul goods, help with defending your base (or attacking a hostile one). This is done by knocking out the dinosaur without killing it, then giving it the appropriate food, berries for herbavores, meat for carnivores, and keep it unconscious with narcoberries and narcotics. In PvP servers, large dinosaurs make excellent deterents against attacks. Conversely, they also make great raiding weapons. I've seen from a distance a party with a T-Rex patrol the length of a beach, and take out begining players' thatch huts.

Besides taming dinos, players can also band together to form tribes for help. In a tribe, players can protect one another as well as specialize in different skills and make for others what they can't. All buildings and goods are shared by everyone in a tribe. You can also do farming, building small plots and plant the seeds you find.

Of the issue of PvP, there have been comparisons to Rust. In the Second Life "Furry Gamers" group, at least one player refuses to play the game outright because it appears in *any* server. After the group's experiences in Rust, Nydia was frustrated with the "PvP kiddies" to the point she got her own server coming to Ark. Trouble is, these personal servers are not always on. Looking for an official one. Confused by what really was a PvP server and what wasn't, I chose one that was labeled "OC." It turned out that it was, with some characters being relentless about it. A few people would swoop down with monster birds, grab lower level players, then drop them from up in the air to fall to their deaths. At least on the middle part of the eastern shore, which was the default location for spawning. Trying in the west, I found things much easier, running into fewer people, and those who were tended to be less hostile ... tended to be. Sadly some people will take the opportunity to kill and steal when they can. On the other hand, it can be pretty satisfying to turn the tables on a raider, and some players take satisfaction in keeping a structure up in defiance of raiders.

Looking further, there were a few servers that were labeled "PvE" (Player versus Enviroment), and while I was there no one raised a hand to me. It was a bit crowded though, with lots of buildings. It's also notable only a few sims were labeled PvE. Other kinds of servers include the "hardcore" in which if a player dies he doesn't lose just the stuff on him, but has to start all over again as a newly created character, presumably with his old character's building, and it's stuff, locked to him. It's fair to say each server has it's own cast of characters with differing attitudes.

As one progresses in levels, you'll be able to go deeper inland and brave the dangers there, and perhaps uncover some of the strange secrets of the island, maybe even escape. Eventually you'll be able to make metal tools, guns, and more technological items. But these require metal, which I've found hard to get. I've heard there are mines, but have yet to see one, possibly because they've already been claimed and are behind someones walls.

Personally, I give the game two thumbs up. It's more versatile than Rust, and a more exciting feel. One small problem, it takes longer to load, so one can get a little frustrated when waiting to get back on the island. Also, the game is still in beta. So it is frequently updated, about once a day on average at the time this review was written. So more time to wait. But once in, there's a number of things one can do, building, crafting, hunting, exploring, etc. Rumor has it a future update will allow for the breeding of dinos for certain traits.

And of course, where else besides Second Life can you ride a T-Rex?

*Correction* I had thought "PvE" meant "Player vs Enemy." Someone corrected me, saying it was "Player vs Environment."

Bixyl Shuftan