Sharks are cool. Lasers are cool. What happens when you mash them together? You get the latest update to ARK: Survival Evolved , in which sharks can shoot lasers from a saddle on their back and giant bees roam the redwood forests. …

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Ark's next patch, v257, was due at the end of April, but it's been pushed back to May 3 both to give Studio Wildcard time to finish their work and so players can move any bases or structures they've built inside the dormant volcano. The volcano, see, is going to receive "an active remodeling" which I presume means a bunch of lava is going to start flowing. Any player-made structure within the highlighted borders (see image below) is toast, so grab the nearest Quetz and get packing. A small client-side patch was pushed out today that displays the borders in-game as well, so you'll be able to tell which structures are in the danger zone. The patch, when it does arrive, will also bring four new dinos (including a giant bee), new Tek features (including a cloning chamber) more UI changes, hairstyles, and new music tracks. Also coming: "Ascension" game progression, which sound like end-game systems and bosses. This post by Jat on the Steam forums sums up the Ascension process rather succinctly: "It involves beating all the bosses, going into the volcano,

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If you're not hip to the whole Ark scene, here's a quick catch-up: the latest patch to the dino survival game included some pretty drastic changes to flying dinosaurs, and many players aren't too happy about it. In particular, the winged dinos' flying speed was greatly reduced and capped. There were also reductions to stamina and carry weight. Birds got nerfed, in other words. For example, my own personal Argy—Argentavis, basically an enormous eagle I can ride—had its pre-patch speed leveled up to about 250%, meaning it was a swift beast to get around on. Post-patch, its speed is not only reduced to 100%, but capped there. The big bird, now none-too-fast, won't ever get any faster, even upon leveling it up. (Note: those points I put into speed have been refunded, and I can use them for other attributes.) This is going to be a real adjustment for me, and all I use my flyers for is transport: many of those who take great pains to breed their birds into powerful super-beasts are now staring glumly at a stable of greatly lessened creatures. Flying dinos are also a major factor on PvP servers (I don't play PvP), so entire tribe wars are going to have to be rethought. Well, there's a beacon of hope for those of you who are miserable with

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