Skip to main content
PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • Hardware
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Video
  • Forum
  • More
    • PC Gaming Show
    • Software
    • Movies & TV
    • Coupons
    • Magazine
    • Newsletter
    • Community guidelines
    • Affiliate links
    • Meet the team
    • About PC Gamer
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$32.49
View
Popular
  • Amazon Prime Day Deals
  • Essential Hardware
  • Microsoft
  • AI
  • PC Gaming Show
Recommended reading
Dinosaurs and survivors gather in front of a birthday cake to celebrate Ark's 10th birthday.
Survival & Crafting Ark: Survival Ascended celebrates 10 years of dino-dodging with a visual upgrade and letting you run around in your birthday suit
RuneScape: Dragonwilds screenshot
Survival & Crafting RuneScape: Dragonwilds has finally made me realise that, actually, maybe the skill grind isn't so bad
A Palworld player character sitting in the grass, wearing red metal high level armor. Behind her, you can see a Tombat in the distance.
Survival & Crafting Palworld guide—Exploring the Terraria update, breeding combos, and crafting
Dune: Awakening Twitch Drops - A sandworm emerging from the sand as people run away and someone falls on their knees.
MMO I just discovered in Dune: Awakening that the only thing worse than seeing a sandworm coming right at you is being stuck in quicksand and seeing a sandworm coming right at you
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC screenshot
RPG While this paleontologist doesn't find Elden Ring's monster designs all that realistic, he was impressed by FromSoft's subtle storytelling and commitment to 'speculative biology'
RuneScape: Dragonwilds screenshot
Survival & Crafting RuneScape: Dragonwilds skill trees and levelling guide
Eco early access
Survival & Crafting A 'little educational game for middle-schoolers' left DayZ's creators obsessed, inspired, and embroiled in a contentious presidential campaign: 'It's 4.5 years later, and I'm still talking about this story'
  1. Games
  2. MMO
  3. Ark: Survival Evolved

Ark diary: How not to train your dinosaur

Features
By Christopher Livingston published 21 July 2015

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The best laid plans of Sarcosuchus and men

The best laid plans of Sarcosuchus and men

During my first day in Ark: Survival Evolved, I went through the typical newbie paces. I chopped some wood, I punched some birds, I pooped out several large, round turds, and I experienced some Early Access glitches. My goal for day two was to actually accomplish something: tame a dinosaur, build a home, meet other players, perhaps even make myself some trousers so I'm not wandering around in my boxers all the time.

I accomplished one of these things! Here's why I didn't accomplish anything else.

Page 1 of 11
Page 1 of 11
Welcome to the neighbor-thud

Welcome to the neighbor-thud

Meeting people isn't hard in ARK. There's tons of busy servers, and death is so common that spawn points are usually littered with other players. Most times I joined a server, I found myself immediately face-to-face with someone, at which point they'd punch me in the face. Like this person did. She punched me in the face.

Page 2 of 11
Page 2 of 11
A little lie-down

A little lie-down

Being punched unconscious after meeting another person happened to me five times, which also happens to be the exact number of other players I've met in ARK. Two punched me and then killed me, two punched me and then had their pet dinosaurs kill me, and one was at least nice enough to punch me and then simply let me lie there in the dirt until I recovered. All things considered, that's an act of kindness.

Page 3 of 11
Page 3 of 11
Too many cooks

Too many cooks

I don't mind being killed by other players. I'm actually grateful it happens so promptly—it means I don't lose anything by dying because I haven't had enough time to collect anything before dying. Still, I am trying to accomplish something today, so I decide to retreat to the relative safety of single-player for a while. I would really, really like to make myself a pair of pants.

Page 4 of 11
Page 4 of 11
You are likely to be eaten by a raptor.

You are likely to be eaten by a raptor.

As it turns out, single-player isn't much of a picnic either. I spawn into my own private world just as night falls, which doesn't give me enough time to gather the resources to craft a torch. As I stumble around in the dark around for a half-hour, I'm killed repeatedly by various dinosaurs. It feels a lot like multiplayer, only I can't see anything. The screenshots I took are all pitch black, so here's a picture of some bird monster about to kill me the next morning.

Page 5 of 11
Page 5 of 11
Let them eat me

Let them eat me

That's right: sunrise doesn't bring much solace, either. I seem to be suffering from some dinosaur curse. On my first day I met plenty of neutral 'saurs, but today I'm killed by a huge Carno, a small Dilophosaurus, a couple Raptors, an Argentavis, a Megalodon, and at one point I respawn three times in the path of the same single Sarcosuchus, which is like an alligator but way bigger. I know I'm at the bottom of the food chain but it'd be nice if I wasn't the only restaurant in town.

Page 6 of 11
Page 6 of 11
Pants accomplished

Pants accomplished

Eventually, I do begin to make a little progress. I survive for a while and gather resources, enough to make a hat, then a shirt, and finally, some actual pants. I even successfully square off with a Dilophosaurus! As satisfying as it is to do some killing of my own for a change, what I really want to do is make friends with a creature. As I'm still a low-level loser, the only creature I feel comfortable attempting to tame is a Dodo bird.

Page 7 of 11
Page 7 of 11
Spare the rod, spoil the 'saur

Spare the rod, spoil the 'saur

Making friends with animals in ARK works much the same way as it does in real life. Pummel the creature into unconsciousness, and then stuff berries or meat inside it, and ten minutes later, you've got a loyal pal! I bash a Dodo in the face, and put some berries into its unconscious body. It eventually gains consciousness and waddles away. A little confused, I punch it again, but it dies.

Page 8 of 11
Page 8 of 11
Can't beat me love

Can't beat me love

Something seems to be going wrong. I try several more Dodos, with the same results. Although their info screen says they're tamable, there is no actual "taming bar" shown once I've beaten them savagely to sleep and stuffed berries in them. I punch and I punch and these stupid birds still won't love me! Eventually, I dig around in some forums and find that a rare bug disables taming in local games. It even happens when I subdue a Dilo. There should be a taming bar in the menu, but there isn't. Looks like my private game won't result in any dino-friends.

Page 9 of 11
Page 9 of 11
Ice age

Ice age

I log out to verify my game files, as one forum member suggested as a solution, and log back in to find this. Isn't this a nice view of some rocks? For some reason, rejoining my game freezes my camera here, though my actual body is elsewhere. I know this because as I try to move, the camera remains still but an oxygen meter appears and then begins to deplete. Wherever my body is, it's drowning. Oh well, I guess it's nice to not actually be present for one of my deaths.

Page 10 of 11
Page 10 of 11
Glug

Glug

Wrong! Upon dying, ARK is nice enough to teleport me to stare helplessly at my submerged corpse. Forever, as it turns out: it won't even let me respawn. Since players, dinos, and the game itself seem to be aligned against me, I decide to stop here for the time being. I sure hope if I'm ever actually abducted by aliens and dropped on some jungle planet to battle prehistoric monsters, it'll at least be a planet that isn't in Early Access.

Page 11 of 11
Page 11 of 11
Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Social Links Navigation
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Read more
Dinosaurs and survivors gather in front of a birthday cake to celebrate Ark's 10th birthday.
Ark: Survival Ascended celebrates 10 years of dino-dodging with a visual upgrade and letting you run around in your birthday suit
RuneScape: Dragonwilds screenshot
RuneScape: Dragonwilds has finally made me realise that, actually, maybe the skill grind isn't so bad
A Palworld player character sitting in the grass, wearing red metal high level armor. Behind her, you can see a Tombat in the distance.
Palworld guide—Exploring the Terraria update, breeding combos, and crafting
Dune: Awakening Twitch Drops - A sandworm emerging from the sand as people run away and someone falls on their knees.
I just discovered in Dune: Awakening that the only thing worse than seeing a sandworm coming right at you is being stuck in quicksand and seeing a sandworm coming right at you
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC screenshot
While this paleontologist doesn't find Elden Ring's monster designs all that realistic, he was impressed by FromSoft's subtle storytelling and commitment to 'speculative biology'
RuneScape: Dragonwilds screenshot
RuneScape: Dragonwilds skill trees and levelling guide
Latest in MMO
An image showing a player house in World of Warcraft, a cosy cottage placed upon a grassy hill in a verdant green forest.
WoW continues to eat FF14's lunch with its housing system on paper—says it'll just make more neighbourhoods if they're full, and you can have private guild ones, too
Fighters clashing in Dune Awakening
Dune: Awakening studio says sorry for accidentally wiping a bunch of stuff in the last patch, promises to replace everything by the end of the week
Lord of the Rings Online 'Great Hobbit Run' standing before the fires of Mount Doom
After 3 years of trying, Lord of the Rings Online's 'Great Hobbit Run' ends in confused success as a mob of low-level players gets lost inside Mount Doom and decides it's close enough: 'Sauron can kiss my butt!'
Two Ethereals and Alleria Windrunner stand poised to enter K'Aresh in World of Warcraft: The War Within.
World of Warcraft: The War Within's last major patch before Midnight drops early August, and it's time to go into space again
Fighters clashing in Dune Awakening
Today's Dune: Awakening patch takes another sidestep away from the PvP-heavy endgame
Dune Awakening
Today's Dune: Awakening patch notes are as long as a sandworm, with more than 300 changes, bug fixes, and squashed exploits
Latest in Features
Fallen London
I've swapped modern live service games for a browser game that's been running since 2009
Four people in armour stand atop a desert landscape. The far left one faces away from camera in black armour, a barbarian with their face covered by a mask stands next to them. A female with medium-length brown hair and white shimmering armour duel wields guns, one held up and one pointing out to her right. Below her outstretched gun an archer crouches, their face obscured by an elaborate headdress.
These 15 PC games died for our sins—can you even remember their names?
Player doing a kickflip in the waterpark map in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4
I would've loved Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 a lot more if it hadn't made the mistake of rolling out time limits for every level
Lea, from Lies of P: Overture, clutches a locket to her chest and tries to maintain her composure.
Lies of P isn't my favourite soulslike, but Overture is one of the best DLCs in the whole genre
Marvel Rivals Season 3 customisation issues: An upper-body shot of Phoenix with her arms out to the side.
If Marvel Rivals doesn't want to reward me with fancy skins for my hard work, then I hope it'll at least give me some of Season 3's new customisation features
Can you guess the PC game based only on the health bar?
  1. Nvidia RTX 5090 and XFX RX 9070 graphics cards
    1
    Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards
  2. 2
    Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner
  3. 3
    Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer
  4. 4
    Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
  5. 5
    Best graphics card for laptops in 2025: the mobile GPUs I'd want in my next gaming laptop
  1. A Mecha Break pilot in a white and pink suit standing before the head of her mech of the same color
    1
    Mecha Break review – Mech fans deserve better than this
  2. 2
    Mycopunk Review: Long live wacky co-op shooters.
  3. 3
    Persona 5: The Phantom X review – More of the same, for better or worse
  4. 4
    NZXT N7 Z890 review
  5. 5
    NZXT N9 X870E review

PC Gamer is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...