When will the game with dinosaurs be a thing. Well, the time has come. “Ark” is a game that is about dinosaurs, crafting, farming, taming, exploring, and the biggest part of Ark is surviving. Personally, “Ark” has to be the greatest survival/crafting game I’ve ever played. Ark is kind of like “Minecraft”, i’m sure  know what that is, with building, but no mining. I’ll talk about the gameplay of “Ark”, the story, the DLCs (Downloadable-Content) , and finally how to survive. There also may be a few spoilers, depends on the person. Also, not all the dinosaurs in the game are real, their mostly made up or mythical. 
         

First, the graphics. The graphics on “Ark” are amazing in the day, but seeking during the night is being as blind as a bat. Everything looks so real in the game with the distinct coloring of dinos, structures, resources, and I mean everything. “Ark” has on average, a big update every month or two like maybe 30 GB (Gigabytes) which is a little much considering how much storage it takes up, about 50 GB. Being able to function in the game is hard to master with slow internet speed on servers. The only way to host a session is by another console, renting a server, or by hosting a non-dedicated session. The non-dedicated server I don’t recommend with friends because of strings. Strings go approximately 300m away from the host at all times including split screen. On the other hand, Hosting with another console (dedicated server) is better because it has no strings, open to friends without strings, but the downside is it takes another console to do. Also to get a dedicated server without buying another console is by renting a server. To rent a server it’s like $100 a month.  Still there's many glitches in the game even though it’s been an early access game for 2 years. A couple of examples are re-entering at the top of the world when logged out last on a dedicated server (doesn’t have strings). Which causes the player to either die or lose most of their health. Another glitch is falling through ceilings when re-entering a server or session. Also when the player brings a shoulder mount into the tek-cave and it stays on their shoulder after they kill the boss it doesn’t come with the player. Now that’s over let’s talk about the storyline.
         

The characters in the story are Helena, Mei-Yin Li, Boris, Trent, and Raia. They are the main foundation of the storyline. To discover them the player must discover the readings from explorer notes, Helena notes, Rockwell Recipes and more. However, The story is mainly in the Helena notes. Helena is a biologist who has been sent to the “Ark” and wrote her everyday experiences like encountering the other characters, the weather, and the dinosaurs. She also talks about her tribe, “The Howling Wolves” and the leader is Rockwell which I’ll get more into later on. The story starts on the first map, the Island and then it transfers to Scorched Earth, then to Aberration, and finally to Earth. Not all the DLCs have a true relationship with the story and there isn’t just two.
         

The two DLCs that cost money are Aberration and Scorched Earth ($20). Both are awesome maps that are part of the “Ark” story. The boss on Scorched Earth It is a combination of a lion, scorpion, and a dragon. Scorched Earth has heat waves, sand storms, electrical storms, and rarely any rain. There are several unique creatures on Scorched Earth but, the two creatures that catch my eye are the Wyverns and the Phoenix. With the Wyverns the only way to get one is by stealing the eggs in the Wyvern's den. The three possible kinds of a Wyvern on Scorched Earth are lightning, poison, or fire. Now the phoenix, there is only one a server and it’s only found during heat waves. One of the downsides of the phoenix being summoned during heat waves is that it is super hot (120+ degrees F) during heatwaves and can only be tamed with fire. Even when it’s tamed,another wild phoenix will not spawn on the server. On Aberration though, the boss is Rockwell who used to be a survivor on the island map, no one knows how he got there. Maybe, someone trapped him in the core of Aberration on purpose which is why Aberration is so unusual. Aberration has earthquakes, gas leaks, and radiation exposures. Most of the map is all underground except for the surface which is very hard to get to. The surface is always burning hot in the the day, and I mean the ground is on fire. In the night it is freezing cold. Either way it’s an extreme environment. Aberration has very cool species too like rock drakes, which can camouflage themselves and the player riding them, the karkinos, a giant crab type creature, and another famous one that is the most adorable is the Bulbdog. It’s probably the most known creature even though it isn’t ferocious. It also provides a natural light source, so does the Shinehorn, Glowtail, and the Featherlight. The two other DLCs are free, Ragnarok, the biggest map yet, and the Center, a gorgeous map. Both have same dinos besides the ice wyvern and the griffin on Ragnarok, also have different bosses. Ragnarok is still in the making, the desert part of it atleast, and is going to be huge.The Center and Ragnarok you can’t just play on right away on single player because, they need to be unlocked by defeating the boss on the Island on gamma level (easiest) and beta level (medium). Last but, not least is Earth, not yet released but, is shown after defeating Rockwell on Aberration, the apopilypoc part. Now that’s all for gameplay onto the storyline.
         

First, when logging into a new game player can make a new character, male or female, any size they want. They may want a big head with a small body or, tiny arms, legs and a big body and head. It’s almost too much fun to mess around with it. Once they’ve spawned in, they can start gathering resources like fiber, berries, wood, thatch, and stone. These resources are the main resources the player can collect with just their r hands. It may involve punching a tree or just picking up stones off the ground. After they’ve gathered some resources then they can create a stone pick. As soon as the player has a level up, they can go into their inventory and go over to engrams to unlock the stone axe, the spear, or the campfire. After they’ve gotten their character leveled up a little, they can start unlocking unique building structures, more advanced crafting stations, different tools/weapons, and even saddles. Once  they have a structure to place, they can start advancing with metal tools, tranq arrows, and better armor. It doesn’t stop there, when you craft a weapon, saddle, or tool it’s all primitive unless, it was from a better blueprint. To get a blueprint they can be found in a loot crate only but, the best feeling is when the item was found premade in the loot crate. The different kind of loot crates are white, green, blue, purple, yellow, and red can be found on the surface of any map but, underwater or, in a cave there are better loot crates usually red and yellow. When the better item was made or found it was probably a better primitive, ramshackle, apprentice, journeyman, mastercraft, or ascendant. All colored the same as the loot crate levels making primitive white and mastercraft yellow, but the only level that doesn’t follow the coloring is the ascendant which is cyan and at one time ascendant used to be red. Now if someone has a better weapon like a crossbow it would take less tranqs and more torpor to knock something out.
         

The different types of dealing torpor include the following:  club, punching, slingshot, tranq arrows, tranq darts, and shocking tranquilizing darts. The first step to taming is making and bringing more than enough tranq arrows and narcotics just to be sure. Some dinos are passively tamed. To passively tame dinos is by putting the item in r last slot of r hotbar to feed the creature r offering. Creatures like the Gigantopithecus (Bigfoot) is a passive tame which can be difficult because if it gets injured the tame starts over and if it bumps into a tamed dino then the hairy creature will come after. Tip: make sure there isn’t any carnivores in the area. Same goes with a monkey but, they won’t attack you. That is the basics of Ark.
         

Everything within “Ark” plays a big role like the gameplay, storyline, DLCs, and the basics. When  I was first introduced to this game, I knew nothing except for the basics that I was taught. Gathering wood, thatch, fiber, flint and stone is what I started with. I’ve soon learned more about the game from experienced players and now know just about everything of “Ark”. “Ark” can be very time consuming on official servers and will take many days even weeks to actually advance. WARNING: can get addicting. Now go conquer the “Ark”.