ARK: Survivor Evolved Finally Released!!!

ARK:  Survivor Evolved was to be released today, June 2nd, at 5pm Eastern.  Lots waited with baited breath refreshing Steam over and over to no avail.  Checking Twitter Feeds looking for updates for the release, two hours passed and then finally it happened!!!

Early Access

Welcome home indeed! 

First of all we’d like to thank you for being patient over the past few hours! We had to delay the launch just by a little bit to help ensure that when you guys do get in, it will be as smoothly as possible. Hiccups may occur as we roll-out ARK, but we’ll do our best to avoid them and will quickly rectify them! 

So without further ado, we would like to extend our warmest welcomes to ARK: Survival Evolved’s Early Access! 

Over the course of Early Access we will be shipping multiple updates a week. You can expect to see very rapid iteration and progress being made at a consistent rate. Working together we will be able to build something spectacular. Something that’s going to set the bar for future survival games, and dinosaur games! It’s going to be one hell of a ride! There will be a lot of polishing, content creation, and optimization going on throughout the entire process and in 2016 we’ll all have something truly amazing to show for it. We’re very eager to get going, and hopefully you are too! 

Founding Survivors!

We’ve got a super cool surprise for all our Founding Survivors! 

The Early Access Limited Edition “Founding Survivor” Parasaur Saddle Skin will be gifted to all survivors who pick up an Early Access copy of ARK: Survival Evolved within the first two weeks. You’ll be granted one on every ARK that you join! Just a little thank you from the team for considering and supporting us in this Early Access phase… and there may be a little something extra too, be sure to check your in-game Inventory :) 

…though that’s not all to get hyped about ;) 

Dino Dossier

A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, and this one is out of this world! Introducing the eight-legged arachnid queen, the Broodmother! 

Scary right? Best of luck to any survivors who manage to bring together the required tribute to summon her! 

Closing words

That’ll be all for this announcement guys! Be sure to check our some of the earlier ones we posted in case you’ve missed anything juicy ;). Looking forward to seeing everyone on the ARK over the next year! We’ll have a great time I’m sure! Thanks for reading and thank you for being so patient! We’ll have more news later in the day as Early Access rolls out, including information about hosting your own servers, how to keep them up-to-date, along with content and features we plan to roll-out in the next day! 

For a release price of $24.89 this gamer thinks that it's a great price for a truly exciting game. However, I've heard a lot of streamers last night and today saying that they have to lower their graphics to get the game to play well during their streams, so keep this in mind.

Pick up your game now during the Early Release

SMITE - Ratatoskr LIVE Review while playing

RATATOSKR IS HERE!!!!!

Today, while waiting for ARK to become available on Steam, a few of us gamers got together for a game of SMITE and took on the challenge of playing the new god - Ratatoskr.  My PR Manager took a moment during game play to ask us about the new God and here's what people said.

DidacticGamer - Needs NERF.  I like it.  The smaller size is great, the speed is great.  BEST assassin right now.  It's new and kind of OP!

SyneLau - He's ADORABLE!  I want to cuddle him!  I've only played him once.  Pretty powerful.  I don't agree he's the best assassin, but he's pretty powerful.  He is strong and very maneuverable. 

Vineyardvines - He needs a BIG NERF on his acorns! 

Gillionaire - He's just like every new god in the game!  Over Powered!

Joshua1bray - (Was viewing the game on DidacticGamer Twitch Stream) "Ummmmm...he's hot!  No homo!"  Yes folks, that was a direct quote!

LuxDream - (A fellow gamer on Smite but hasn't had a chance to play Ratatoskr yet) "I think it's an interesting god to have, compared to the others.  For sure something new for Smite and of course Ratatoskr looks freaking fluffy and so cute!!"

Djvo - (Another Smite player whose had a chance to play this God)  "A mobile caster-type assissin, relying more on ability usage than on auto-attacks, compared to a general assassin classification."

When asked if the players feel that the acorn is a good enough replacement for an item+passive, since it does represent both, the consensus was that it definitely was!  It's versatile and gives you 5 physical power.  For the price it's quite effective!

A Little History On Ratatoskr:

For those of you out there, like me, who enjoys having background information and knows a little education goes a long way, I've researched information on Ratatoskr and found out quite a bit!

In Norse mythology, Ratatoskr (Old Norse, generally considered to mean "drill tooth" or "bore-tooth") is a squirrel who runs up and down the World Tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the unnamed eagle, perched atop Yggdrasil, and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three roots of the tree.  Ratatoskr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholars have proposed theories about the implications of the squirrel.

The name Ratatoskr contains two elements:  rata- and -toskr.  The element toskr is generally held to mean "tusk".  Guðbrandur Vigfússon theorized that the rati- element means "the traveler".  He says that the name of legendary drill Rati may feature the same term.  According to Vigfusson, Ratatoskr means "tusk the traveler" or "the climber tusk."

During game play I've taken a few screen shots so you can see Ratatoskr in action.  

This last screen shot is the Ult for Ratatoskr and shows the World Tree Yggdrasil.

ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS TIL THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!