Game purchased Nov 1, 2015 for $20.29 USD.

TL;DR: this game is not worth $50.00 USD, the DLC is not worth $20.00 USD each.

There's a lot to complain about, but if you host your own server and tweak the right settings it's a fun vanilla experience with a lot of mods to spice up the game. If you're interested in the game, get it at ~$20.00 USD.

Also, stay away from official servers as they're very laggy. PvP is horribly unbalanced. It's definitely a game where you hunt for the perfect private server, or host your own.


My biggest issue with the game is how reliant on timers and alarms the dinosaur taming/hatching requires. At default settings, it can take literal hours for a dinosaur to finish taming.

I remember the exact moment I ditched this game for a year. My friends and I had "raided" a Wyvern nest for its eggs. We hatched them to get our own baby Wyverns. It was about 2:00 AM and I said, "I'm going to sleep now, see ya, boys."

That's when my friend said, "Oh, remember to set an alarm for five hours so you can feed it or it'll die overnight."

Am I playing a dinosaur survival game or a raise-a-baby simulator?


A year or so later, I'm back. But I'm hosting my own private server for friends and tweaked the settings so it doesn't rely on timers and alarms.

Typically, you'll see servers advertise "5x Taming" rates. Which means that if a dinosaur requires 100 Prime Meat over the course of 60 minutes to tame, instead it will now take 20 Prime Meat over the course of 12 minutes to tame.

That setting is okay, but I find it takes away from the resource gathering. Instead, there is a "Wild Dino Consumption" multiplier.

Using our previous example, if we set the the rate to "5x Consumption" a dinosaur will still require 100 Prime Meat but over the course of 12 minutes instead of 60. I find this doesn't make the game easier, instead reducing the amount of real time required.

Using the right settings, you can focus more on the fun parts of the game and not treat it like a mobile game.


If you think Modern Warfare 2019 has the worst file size compression, then you've never heard of ARK's horror stories. I have no idea how they managed to make the file sizes so un-optimized.

Every single small update, DLC/mod install, etc. will continue to balloon the size of the game uncontrollably. My personal record is ARK becoming 210GB with no mods.

Google "game compactor" and compress the game folder every time it updates to keep its file size down. Once that stops working: uninstall, reinstall, compress, repeat.

Game purchased Nov 1, 2015 for $20.29 USD. TL;DR: this game is not worth $50.00 USD, the DLC is not worth $20.00 USD each. There's a lot to complain about, but if you host your own server and tweak the right settings it's a fun vanilla experience with a lot of mods to spice up the game. If you're interested in the game, get it at ~$20.00 USD. Also, stay away from official servers as they're very laggy. PvP is horribly unbalanced. It's definitely a game where you hunt for the perfect private server, or host your own. [h1]The Time Issue[/h1] My biggest issue with the game is how reliant on timers and alarms the dinosaur taming/hatching requires. At default settings, it can take literal hours for a dinosaur to finish taming. I remember the exact moment I ditched this game for a year. My friends and I had "raided" a Wyvern nest for its eggs. We hatched them to get our own baby Wyverns. It was about 2:00 AM and I said, "I'm going to sleep now, see ya, boys." That's when my friend said, "Oh, remember to set an alarm for five hours so you can feed it or it'll die overnight." Am I playing a dinosaur survival game or a raise-a-baby simulator? [h1]Fixing the Time Issue[/h1] A year or so later, I'm back. But I'm hosting my own private server for friends and tweaked the settings so it doesn't rely on timers and alarms. Typically, you'll see servers advertise "5x Taming" rates. Which means that if a dinosaur requires 100 Prime Meat over the course of 60 minutes to tame, instead it will now take 20 Prime Meat over the course of 12 minutes to tame. That setting is okay, but I find it takes away from the resource gathering. Instead, there is a "Wild Dino Consumption" multiplier. Using our previous example, if we set the the rate to "5x Consumption" a dinosaur will still require 100 Prime Meat but over the course of 12 minutes instead of 60. I find this doesn't make the game easier, instead reducing the amount of real time required. Using the right settings, you can focus more on the fun parts of the game and not treat it like a mobile game. [h1]The OG Size Bloater[/h1] If you think Modern Warfare 2019 has the worst file size compression, then you've never heard of ARK's horror stories. I have no idea how they managed to make the file sizes so un-optimized. Every single small update, DLC/mod install, etc. will continue to balloon the size of the game uncontrollably. My personal record is ARK becoming 210GB with no mods. Google "game compactor" and compress the game folder every time it updates to keep its file size down. Once that stops working: uninstall, reinstall, compress, repeat.