Posted: 27 Jan 2020 12:32 PM PST

I started this game in December, December 27th to be exact, I have ark and never knew this game even existed until then. I was at home sick, and found the game was six or seven dollars and figured I'd give it a shot despite the reviews... An so the legend begins.

I awoke to find myself in a port city, a beautiful city of brick and aged wood panels. I marveled at the scene and the sounds when all of the sudden I hear a voice behind me... I turn to find a man in full armor, looking geared and confident. He asks me to join him and his 1 man Company and sail the seas... Not having any other prospect's I gladly join his company and follow him to a sloop waiting by the docks.

We board and start sailing around to another side of the Freeport and suddenly he says he must leave,I ask for the ship and he gladly gives it to me and as he is overweight from his inventory and cannot jump out... So I can also have his stuff along with the boat. I'm still in his company, but soon find myself alone at the wheel of a foreign ship, in a game I know nothing about... " Let's do this" I hear in my own head as I rise to the challenge... " Let's be a pirate legend".

A mere few moments later and I find myself in 30 foot swells, nearly falling overboard while trying to man the two sailed ship alone... The rains pounding down in sheets, the wind feels as though it will capsize me... But I press on towards a close lawless Island, determined to make glory or die trying... I get struck by cyclones, cyclones EVERYWHERE. I am horrified. I set max sails and sail with the wind at my back, not caring where I end up as long as there aren't any more cyclones there.... Suddenly I see green Gastly looking ships, EVIL ships all around me forming a half crescent moon in front of me.. it was too late to turn. I had to sail through them... I start taking heavy fire, my boat pops a hole as another ship comes in range and finishes the job.. I sink with my boat watching in horror as my high hopes sink alongside me, I get eaten by a shark, and face the "you are dead" screen realizing just how much I have yet to learn.

Disheartened, but determined I press on. I hit respawn without looking at the details and find myself on a fully loaded boat. New Hope it's called... Smithy, tannery, loom, chests, bed... You name it. This thing was a luxury cruise liner to me... It was my company leaders boat that he had been working on for the last 3 day's... The one that left me 4 minutes in... I unclaimed the ship, left the company to make my own and stole the ship. It was what A good pirate would do after all I thought.

I set sail for the same area I sank in hoping to find something in the wreckage of value only to be again slammed with storms, ghost ships, fog, sharks and nearly getting smashed by a whale. I speed into lands view and realized I couldn't stop in time before "SMACK" At Gale force winds I drive my boat into a shipyard that was obscured from view by the dangers of the sea. Frantically I try lowering each sail as it gets repeatedly smashed into the shipyard. The swells were so high that it pulled the boat back a bit and allowed it to re-collide with the shipyard on its way down, I was stuck in the shipyard too so turning wasn't an option. With 700hp left on the bow panels I save her and get her unstuck. I try to make landfall just to the left of those docks when Cannon fire erupts from the shoreline base and hits my ships rear panels.. I PANIC and head right into another ghost ship fleet and my ship got sunk just off shore. I swim to land knowing about the sharks under the surface and drag myself onto the beach...wet, shirtless, boatless and level 3...

I spend a week in real life learning the game on that lawless Island, building my cabin up off the beach out of sight, killing mountain lions and cobras and rattlesnakes with my bare hands to survive. I spent that whole week learning how to build a boat and outfit it, how to sail, how to do all the basics. I fished up around 50 gold, knowing that I would need gold for my own crew, and fish for vitamin D. I get a friend to join me nearing the end of that week, and we had a few close calls on that island. not only that, new people were moving into and they were there to break bases and take stuff, we befriended them and gave them a lot of fiber so that they would choose another base but we knew time was limited. So there I am, alone on my boat just pulled off of the beach so that I can fish, I'm kind of pressed up against the wall in a natural Bay and all the sudden someone starts firing at me... I look up and I see a ship has crept up close to me and is in broadside position... Letting loose on me, intending to sink.

Luckily for me previous days has taught me that medium-speed sails were faster, and I had just outfitted a medium speed sale on my first hand built sloop, my first real ship. still having no crew I panic without even really seeing the company name, set sales to full speed and Dodge cannon balls while I rip it out of the bay, not knowing where the heck to go. I end up going on a 4-Hour adventure to other islands, locating treasure maps and overall just trying to stay clear of my bay for a while and make it worth my while doing it. my friend wakes up and lets me know that he too wants off the island, we decide to make a plan to leave and pack my small sloop up with everything we have. it had been 10 days since I made the original base on the lawless Island, and while nothing happened to me yet I knew it could at any time and we had to get to a safer spot.

We set sail to get crew and then to travel to a specific Island we found on the map, we pointed that island and said "this, this will be all island we settle on, this will be our home" 5 hours later, against the winds and all odds we arrive to one of those neighboring islands in that region with crew...only to find that unclaimed Island we pointed out had recently been taken over by a company. Ouch. I pull up to that companies Island, one of them anyway and asking local if anyone's there... I get a reply, and a naked man runs up to the beach on my boat. He states that we can use resources for repair but we can't settle on that island, and we are more than welcome to settle on the island we intended to, the one they just took over.

We land, exhausted and weary of the sea, just wanting to get on dry land and put a roof over our heads. I find a nice spot and climb the nearest plateau to get a good look, yes, this will do just nicely. With my day coming to a close my energy running out, I look out from the top of that plateau with Wonder and amazement wondering what's in store for me and my friend, and our company... Wondering, will I be the legend I want to be, or will it all be lost and ground into the coral like everything else that dies around here...

Over the next few weeks we acquired 2 extra members, the first one other than my IRL friend... Well it was not my shining moment of coordination.. I sank his ship. You see the island was controlled by a parent company and I asked that parent company if they recognized the ship and the person who owned it... Because they were trying to fill that new island with settlers ( and rid it of the old inhabitants). The leader of the parent company said he had no idea who it is and I was free to fire, and sink it.... So I did....Well it turns out that he was another settler told to go there by the same parent company. Oops. shortly after that I volunteered to organize all the settlers on the island into an alliance, and we started gaining members. one of my first orders of business was to go back to the lawless Island where I started and hand build another schooner, I felt it was necessary to build character and understand how hard it is to build these ships... I didn't want to use my allies resources. When I went back to that Island I ended up finding my cabin fully intact, apparently my methods of appeasing the raiding party worked. I also happen to see a shipyard with a nearly fully built schooner with 12 guns and multiple decks, the guys that built This must have spent A week on it at least...And then I see the company name, and I remember it was the same name of the ship that nearly sunk my first boat.. plans changed. I set out to craft 200 cannonballs and 1 Cannon, and destroy their shipyard with their nearly finished ship sitting in it, I then used those resources to make my first schooner.

Fast forward 2 more weeks and we had a total of 10 members, the parent company that was in control of everything got wiped and we were left to our own devices. We United everyone into one big faction, took over the settler Island that we originally inhabited, and became allies with the neighbors. Things were looking up, things were good. My company was growing, and I was managing to politically weave and learn the ins-and-outs of the politics to see a lot and to keep our company growing and thriving.

Well the second non RL member that joined, I should have mentioned this... When he joined and he wanted to merge with me, he mentioned that he had four to five thousand hours experience in Ark and knew how to do company management and ranks and all the specifics very well. He was wondering if I would be willing to let him have ownership rank so that he could take care of all that for me..he assured me that he did not want to be the leader, I was still the owner and leader. I wanted to put my trust in my new crew.. and honestly that stuff wasn't my forte, so I did it. we were also still under the rule of the parent company and really didn't have that much so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal in the end for him to give it back to me... That's where the betrayal all started. That was my mortal mistake.

Back to the present day 10 member company...I had a blowout with one of the third or fourth members that joined, they unreasonably got mad at me for something I didn't even know was a risk... And long story short things got rocky. I got nervous as the one I had a blowout with and the guy that had the ownership title for friends, we're getting close.. so I politely asked for my ownership title back to which I was met with a hell no in my ever giving you back ownership. He cited my want to have a round table type company as the reason, but a week earlier he had also demoted my second-in-command. I saw the writing on the wall, they wanted to make a round table board to vote... And he wanted a majority of the members to agree with him. That's why he demoted my second-in-command so that he wouldn't have a seat at the round table vote... And they could make every vote without contest.

Side note: We were making 10000 metal and wood and thatch a day of passive income, things were great... but I couldn't take this sitting down. I couldn't let them have my faction I built, using a hundred and 80 hours of my time to do so ( Our company was still in my name, the White Fang co. and I... am White Fang). I was the diplomat and leader for our company, undisputed until now... and during the last month I learned some things and met some people and made diplomatic ties that I figured could help me in just a situation. I decide instead of becoming a neutered member of my own company that has no real say in its direction, that I would rather burn it all down and watch it fall. I realized at this time that I had been too nice, but I didn't become the vicious yet honorable pirate I set out to be and decided that changed now...

I devised a plan... I would strike when they least expected it, sinking their entire Navy, and then I would make a hit, calling out their location, the resources they had, and what they did to deserve an attack... I notified every major company in the entire server on a Friday night of the hit, of the treasure... I created a treasure hunt where the proverbial treasure was my own company. I put every one of my diplomatic skills to use, to destroy the very faction I had built over the last month. I do want to clarify that when I devised and executed this plan I stated and made it well known that the settlers on the island were innocent as well as the Allies that our main base was on. I didn't want to burn Bridges with everyone, I just wanted to get my honor back.

Now if it was an enemy who wiped me, I would have respect for them, my story would have been over... but it was an ally... A trusted member that I trusted fully from day one... And that could not go unnoticed, they had to pay dearly.

The plan worked, multiple factions mobilized for the the treasure hunt, and helped me restore my honor. The next day I come back to my old base to find it a smoldering pile of ruins, nothing was left untouched.. our base was not on the island we controlled, and in the end my valiant allies came to my side and helped rescue my second in command that they held in prison to punish me while he sang Opera so they could find him. The deed is done, now I sit a shirtless diplomat with many companies interested in recruiting me because of my exploits... staring out from that very plateau I first climbed weeks ago when I landed on the settlers island... Wondering what next my adventures will bring and thinking back on what I learned:

Never trust anyone with power fully.

NEVER betray a man of honor, a diplomat or your leader...

Hold your allies in high regard, help them and offer kindness because you never know when you will need to rely on them to help you reclaim your honor too.

I will stop at nothing to become the honorable Pirate Bad ass I aspire to, and that my journey is just beginning....

An so continues "The legend of White Fang"...

submitted by /u/TheMoralCentaur
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NA PVP Kraken's Grasp

Posted: 27 Jan 2020 03:37 PM PST

Hey all just looking for anyone who is looking for renters.

We bought the game on sale this weekend and are veteran ark players who have gotten v bored with boss farming.

We're looking to rent because we like to do our own things but after building 3 schooners yesterday and them all being destroyed we want to look at our options!

Please pm me with details!

submitted by /u/Mesartihm
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Difference beetwen Ocean map and Blackwood map?

Posted: 27 Jan 2020 10:40 AM PST

Are there any difference? I play in non dedicated server

submitted by /u/Intryy
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