The first few nights of Ark were pretty disappointing; not the EA issues like framerate and graphics, but that I kept being set back by people who KoS with no mics and it was honestly pretty frustrating. I understand its part of the survival game genre but getting past that early game hump is hard.

Last night after spawning on a fresh server, I immediately ran into another guy, we chatted a bit and decided to team up. We started building a small hatch hut, and gathering supplies. We ran into two more people and we decided to form a tribe! Shared experience is a great feature for sure. By the end of hour 2, our tribe was 5 members strong and we collectively demolished a few acres of jungle to upgrade our thatch complex to wood. I suddenly realized how this game strongly encourages teamplay; to make a wood house of our size, solo, would have taken hours and hours to build. It is super advantageous to group up.

A few hours into our adventure, another tribe set up down the beach from us. I approached them and asked if they wanted to join us, but they wanted to do our own thing. I said if they needed any supplies down the line just ask, and gifted them some dye and a paintbrush to decorate their new house. They could have easily killed me, but we all remained super friendly.

The best part? After everyone logged off for the night, no one knew if we were going to be alive in the morning. Thats just the nature of survival games like this. But when I logged on a second ago, WE WERE ALL ALIVE! Someone obviously tried to break in but gave up quickly without metal tools to break the wood. Hopefully when I get off work we are still there, but regardless I'm going to work on moving our base away from the beach, and hopefully level up to start constructing dinosaur enclosures.

Anyways, just wanted to share what may have been my best night of survival gaming in years. Really looking forward to the future of this game.

If anyone has any cool experiences, share below!