Snow owls are amazing. I discovered them on Lost Island and use them more than my argies for daily getting about. Not yet tamed one on Fjordur though, might try for the awesome coloured one tonight. Looking forward to more pics from you!

I raised a bunch of raptors yesterday. I like running around to explore rather than fly; it's so easy to miss things when you're flying. But I need protection I saw some desmodus near my "base" too; just below the blue obelisk. They were having a fight with some mammoths and lost. I flew over to the volcano with my argie and very carefully managed to nab a breeding pair of x-ankys. Male was 140, female only 60 but lovely blue spikes. They have now had a baby (attached). Could be tempted to breed them up for colour mutations. I also grabbed a deinonychus egg but it's only level 20.

As I'm on singleplayer it's just a copy of my existing char, though she's only at level 89 whereas she's 90 now on one of the other maps. I have just unlocked the incubator at least. Just need to get off my lazy ass and build up a base somewhere. I'm tempted by 2 islands close together in the middle of the map, completely take them over and cryopod any non-flyers over to the main lands as needed.

Speaking of, I got very confused the other day. I'd watched a video and someone on a desmodus had gone over to Asgard and was happily flying around. I thought great, let's teleport there with my argy. Don't do it. It counts as a cave. Desmodus can fly in caves as they live in them but no other flyers can. Supposedly you can turn on the "cave flying" setting and it will work but I've seen mixed reports as to whether it actually does or not.

Wait you can fly your dinosaurs?

Of course! If you're really lucky a kind, wild bat might even come and pick you up for a (very) short flight

Flying around does make it a much easier game, provided you watch your stamina. If the dino runs out you will enter a short landing animation and if it doesn't reach the ground in that time, you will be ejected from its back and will fall to your death, either by hitting the ground in the usual manner or if you're close enough that you don't die outright, you can almost guarantee there'll be a raptor pack or giant snake waiting to eat you

Got loads of things I need to go back to tame. Building up an army of Daeodon (my first lot tamed ever) to help me with taming Desmodus and also found a 140 R-Giga that I want to tame. Wish me luck!

Good luck, although most of us didn't understand a thing you said. Ha, so this is what it's like when I talk computer stuff to my friends.

Lol it's like when I worked at Game and me and the deputy manager played WoW. Everyone else would be standing around wondering what on earth we meant by "Blackrock" or "Holy Light" It's one of the things I love about gaming, you can get so lost in a world no one has a clue what you're on about haha.

Speaking of, I ran into shadowmanes yesterday (deliberately, I want to tame them). All I have to say is ouch and I still don't have one.

That's precisely why I got into BG2. I remember a friend, Tom, in A-Level Biology one day telling me and my friend Jennie about this awesome game and trying to explain how it all worked. The fact people could die permanently or get pissed off and fight you sold it to me 100%. Sometimes hearing weird game stuff is the selling point.

Been playing this heavily... mostly here to post some pics. I actually have a new base that's finally nearly done, but no pics of that. Shiny has gone on a taming spree... she's already completely filled a cryo-fridge with dinos, plus has quite a number more out. We did end up finally taming that 140 quetzal. We also got 2 gigas, but they're both the same sex (male I think?) so no breeding, plus they're really low level, in the 20s I think. However, the second was completely purple, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, pics. I need to take more pictures of the new base.

Nice pics there Satis! And Shiny's argy collection is beautiful. I'm a sucker for the argy colours.

Your base is way better than mine, mine is still not even slightly built yet. I've shoved the odd thing I need on some foundations and that's it. I really do need to get round to it. And taming the r-giga. I'm 91 now so only 5 levels until I could ride it. I do have to admit that I now have dino storage mod. I was going to join someone's server so had to get it for that, along with a stacking mod, but haven't really bothered to get on that server so I'm using them in my singleplayer game now. Makes life so much easier. Most of my dinos are now stored, though once I get a proper base built I'll have some out just for the sake of it. I like having areas for them with them that look natural where I can, like my equus field on Crystal Isles.

Have you been to the other realms yet? They're beautiful. I haven't been to Jotunheim, only Asgard and Vanaheim. I may build a base in Vanaheim, it's gorgeous. I've been exploring a few caves recently looking for desmodus but am not really set up for it so it's been very tentative on my dire wolf. I went in the Aberration cave and saw my first shinehorns and featherlights. Will definitely be going to grab some of those. I was looking for rock drake eggs but that cave only has adults in. The eggs are in a radiated cave in Asgard (which I stumbled across and very quickly ran out of as I don't have a hazard suit yet). I also found a huge dwarf hall on the island I'm currently on (southwest) that basically goes under the entire island. Lots of crumbled corridors and a couple of huge halls plus a large "mines of Moria" style section complete with skinny stone bridge you can cross, but you can get down to the bottom of it too where there are huge crystals and some raptors/carnos/ravagers. Not the normal raptors either, much prettier ones (forget if it's x or r). Still haven't managed to tame a desmodus.

Some of the screenshots are a little washed out. I had to give up with regular brightness on that map and go up to gamma 3.

Oh nice... I have not been to any other realms yet. I think we're planning on doing that soonish... one of the guys we play with has made everyone hazmat suits. Personally I want to go to the pretty place (Vannaheim I guess) to get me a Gacha. I link taming weird creatures. I also found the mines of Moria, I think, but when I got bumped off my bird I decided to come back another time. That's actually on the opposite side of the map from where we're set up, so it's not the easiest to get to.

I'm right by the blue obelisk for now, I think virtually everyone sets up over on the south east coast of the northern landmass from what I've seen on videos.

Just been looking at some of captain fatdog's videos as he has some new, cheaper traps for gigas and spinos. 14 pillars, metal or stone respectively. Time to get my R-Giga hopefully!

Edit: In true Ark fashion, despite it being there at least 3 times before, when I now go to find the giga it's gone.

Tonight's adventures were all about finally starting to build up my base. There are two islands close to each other and fairly central on the map so I'm planning to make the smaller one my home + crafting base and the larger one various dino pens. Tonight's job was to build a bridge between them both. On the way back from gathering some stuff from my old base I also found the diplo that must be the ancestor of goats.

Oh, very nice. Making a multi-island base is a great idea. Difficult for any alpha stuff to find you there, plus great water access for tames that requires that. Good call. In our game, Shiny and I have moved into the tower. It's mostly complete... she's already decorated her penthouse, I still have work to do. There's a bit more building for easier access to the roof crafting area, but not a bunch left. We did end up going to Asgard and picked up some Rock Drake tames... Shiny and I have been raising them. Also finally captured a high level female tickle chicken and am raising the first child from there (a male). Hoping to turn that modest start into an army for boss fights.

We've been regularly raiding a aberrant cave to the north west, and it's pretty easy. Shiny and I hit a fire cave more to the center of the north island, but when Shiny saw the titanoboas, she noped right out of there. I ended up getting 2 of the 3 chests, but man that cave is a bit rough. I ended up getting mega-rabies or whatever, but I had a good stack of health potions, so it wasn't such a big deal. I hope to take some more pics of the finished base soon... plus Shiny's ever-expanding argie collection.

The tower? Is that one of the pre-built areas or do you mean a tower you'd built?

Speaking of boss fights, I was amused to see you have 100 hours less in Ark than me but twice the achievements. I just spend all my time breeding, building and running around. Maybe my challenge should be to go fight a boss before I hit 1000 hours.

I am getting more organised though so might be able to go do caves soon. I still need some decent cave tames but I now have an industrial forge, grill and cooking whatsit set up and am almost ready to put in a proper chemistry bench. Then I can start farming up ingredients for some of the potions, meals etc to help with things and get around to making hazard suits, grapples, climbing picks or whatever to help.

I did get a little distracted the other day as I was flying around waiting for my metal to smelt and ended up taming an allo then spent ages trying to get a spino. Then a green horse had spawned so I obviously had to tame that too