ARK Survival Evolved
Jeremy Stieglitz confirms that UE5 is coming to ARK 1. What this means is explained in more detail in the article! In addition, the latest patch from 23.01.2023 finally prevents the use of ini modifications on the client.
UE5 update and consequences for mods
Jeremy (one of the founders of Wildcard/ARK) has "officially" confirmed via Twitter that the Unreal Update for ARK 1 is planned (https://twitter.com/jeremystieg…, https://twitter.com/jeremystieg…), but there are still some important points to be clarified before further information can be published. A first statement from him, however, is that the game saves can be transferred once.
At the same time, Zen Row (Mod Community Manager) has communicated initial information on Discord regarding the dependency on the mods (https://discord.com/channels/15…). It looks like the mods will have to be "recooked" and it is not yet known to what extent an "automatic" migration of e.g. SS or S+ structures will take place. This does not only apply to structure mods, but also to custom mod maps (which are not distributed as official DLC) or other mods.
To what extent a modder/developer can then guarantee some kind of migration with additional effort remains to be seen.... Nekatus (map modder of Valguero, Fjordur and now Svartalfheim) said on Twitter that a temporary move to an official map might be necessary for his latest map (https://twitter.com/Nekatus/sta…). It becomes problematic with mods where the source code is no longer available or the developer no longer has the time/desire to develop it further. I don't think Wildcard will develop a kind of "compatibility layer" to support old mods anyway. But as Zen Row says, this is still being discussed internally at Wildcard!
The worst case from my point of view would be that a migration is only possible on official maps (incl. the DLC's) and that only vanilla objects (structures, opposites, resources and dinos) can be taken over.
The use of INI's was deactivated
The last patch (server v356.3, clients v356.1) contained the inconspicuous text "Disabled unintended client-side visual configs". As the first ones already suspected, it was now finally prevented in the ARK client itself that the graphics settings can be massively changed in the background via configuration files (ini's). These changes did not affect the well-known ARK start commands (-nomansky, -sm4, -d3d10, -lowmemory), but were modifications of internal game data. These additional configurations created massive advantages for PVP players (transparent water, bushes/stones are not shown, trees without leaves, removal of smoke and other effects, change of colors to see players and buildings better, etc.). So all changes that were never intended by Wildcard and are simply cheats!
So all changes that were never intended by Wildcard and are simply cheats! Unfortunately, it was not possible to officially "ban" the players, because the change took place on the client and could be done with a simple text editor with copy/paste of certain texts (i.e. it was also not detectable). NOW, however, Wildcard has addressed the problem and stopped these common modifications in the client itself! The cheaters can now be recognised by these wildcards shouting in the Discord that now Base is in the dark and you can't see anything under water. THANK YOU WILDCARD!
