Hey everybody!
A little while ago ARK announced a new role they were trying to fill in assisting with the mod community. I’m very happy to announce that I’m that person. Some of you may know me from my work on Primitive+, but I wanted to introduce myself!
Who am I?
A guy that loves modding, design, art, and programming. I come from a pretty heavy programming background and have always played around with graphic design. When the ARK Dev Kit came around I only had Unity experience in terms of game development. I knew I wanted to try my hand at a mod based on my current obsession with the game. I had no idea it would turn into a dream job. I’m not an expert at anything by any means but I’m hoping to give a lot back to the community.
So… We get our wishlist now???
While working with the team does give me some access to behind the curtains and influence on the future of the development kit, I don’t want anyone to thing magic is going to happen here. From what I’ve seen so far I can tell you it’s a lot more complicated than it may seem. With that said, I will be looking at the most commonly requested things and trying to get them implemented into the dev kit. No promises here! Let’s say we didn’t get any additional functionality added to the dev kit… Could we still make some amazing content? Sure can! I won’t sit here and say the dev kit is perfect and there aren’t things that need to be exposed but I also won’t commit to it. I will commit to giving it my all to make it a reality if it’s something the community wants and will add value. Keep in mind, some things are just out of scope based on the investment the team would have to make to expose or change certain things.
What exactly is changing??
I’d like to try and get things a little more organized in the forums. I won’t lie, I can be OCD about certain things (too many computer windows open) so you all will have to voice your opinion on what makes sense. I’d also like to try and standardize some of the requests for help. While I may not post all the time, I visit the forums frequently and most of the requests for help are either covered in a tutorial buried on page 10 or there isn’t enough information to even help. Over the next few days I will be posting a few stickies on requesting help. There are a lot of talented people in this forum and tons of them that always help out when they can. Not only do I appreciate it (because I’ve used the help before) but Wildcard appreciates it too!
Wait, Wildcard…
They have obviously invested in the future of modding for this game. I wouldn’t be in this position if that weren’t proof of it. To show appreciation, there official ‘dev kit master’ unique skins that are available in game. These are unique and special tokens of appreciation from the Wildcard team for all that you do. In order to keep them unique, they won’t be handed out to just anyone. Being a master is not only showing that you’ve mastered a craft but that you can create the next masters 
Being active in the forums or posting tutorials are just a few ways to get this honor. There are already a few people that I’ll be reaching out to based on all of the work they’ve already done. I will post more soon on this topic but be sure to contact me if you think you already fall into this category.
What else will you be working on?
Recently we launched some official servers for Primitive+ and my work on it will continue throughout my time at Wildcard. It’s an extreme pleasure to get to still work on what started this all independently and drive the vision. If you don’t know about Primitive+, its a total conversion that looks to create a more immersive primitive lifestyle. The development life cycle is rather aggressive and I plan to continue on that cycle until ARK gets ready for launch. In addition to that, I’ll be reaching out to some of you authors and streaming some of the things you are working on. Hopefully, that drives a little more visibility and attention to the things you are working on.
Please be sure to reach out to me if you’re interested in helping out in the mod community or if you just wanna say hey! Also, feel free to respond with some changes you’d like to see around the forum to make it a better experience!
More to come!
(What I lazy excuse I just brought…)