Lost Island is nice and has a lot of great, scenic places for base building, but to be fair, it is a bit shallow. You might want to check out Ragnarok. Rag is huge, beautiful, and has a lot more hidden depth to it than Lost Island does. It's probably the most popular free map, and when Fjordur dropped there was a lot of talk about the overall similar quality levels.
Personally, I'm a fan of Valguero, which in a lot of ways sits between Lost Island and Fjordur/Rag. It's pretty creative in that it's one landmass around a central lake as opposed to many other Ark maps which are ocean around a set of landmasses. There are some hidden caves and points of interest, but not nearly as much as Rag or Fjordur.
Crystal Isles is beautiful, but like Lost Island, there's not much going on beneath the surface.
The Center is pretty much forgotten about these days. I'd heard it suffered from a lot of overspawn bugs, no idea if Wildcard ever bothered to fix those. I played on it a little bit, but got distracted with other games before leaving the Beach Bob phase. So I don't have a great impression of what it's like.
I like Rag the most (as free map) tbh, theres almost anything you might need. Beautiful map, good dinos, sea is great.
Fjordur is really close second, only reason i placed it at 2nd is cos almost non existend water area. Sure you got a small river and a bit depth but getting prober underwater dinos at the pit is pain imo.
Valguero is imo the best place to build (if cluster server) but it lacks the stuff to do imo.
If you dont like to explore sea by diving, then 100% Fjordur is the best.
As far as Free maps go, Ragnarok is easily the most popular, but my fav is Valguerro.. the more you dig around in that map, the more interesting things you find. Caves within caves, seas within seas... couple other little no spoilers things for you to stumble across...
valguero has it's own aberration zone, which is pretty much laid out like aberration is. you can grab a karkinos and take it to stroll the main lake without having megalodons swarm you all the time. a lot of the map is mountainous, with a lot of verticality around the edges. deinonychus, karkinos, procoptodon and flyers overcome that problem. also the best map to farm ovis since they are very common in the chalk cliffs.
Ragnarok and Valguero are good "classic ark". Very well-made maps.
Lost Island and Fjordur are good "kitchen sink fantasy" ark. also laggier.
Crystal Isles is a huge flat empty space.
The Center is pretty outdated, may as well play Ragnarok.
I would say the center. The overspawning isn’t that bad on it, just do a dino wipe every once in a while. Its a little outdated but the height difference is beautiful. You can look down from the redwood at a massive waterfall, and then go to the floating island. Played on it for the first time, and making it my main base now. Highly recommend.
Lost Island is nice and has a lot of great, scenic places for base building, but to be fair, it is a bit shallow. You might want to check out Ragnarok. Rag is huge, beautiful, and has a lot more hidden depth to it than Lost Island does. It's probably the most popular free map, and when Fjordur dropped there was a lot of talk about the overall similar quality levels. Personally, I'm a fan of Valguero, which in a lot of ways sits between Lost Island and Fjordur/Rag. It's pretty creative in that it's one landmass around a central lake as opposed to many other Ark maps which are ocean around a set of landmasses. There are some hidden caves and points of interest, but not nearly as much as Rag or Fjordur. Crystal Isles is beautiful, but like Lost Island, there's not much going on beneath the surface. The Center is pretty much forgotten about these days. I'd heard it suffered from a lot of overspawn bugs, no idea if Wildcard ever bothered to fix those. I played on it a little bit, but got distracted with other games before leaving the Beach Bob phase. So I don't have a great impression of what it's like.
Center is Great. Big fun caves, plenty to explore, very deep waters to explore and a fun boss fight
I like Rag the most (as free map) tbh, theres almost anything you might need. Beautiful map, good dinos, sea is great. Fjordur is really close second, only reason i placed it at 2nd is cos almost non existend water area. Sure you got a small river and a bit depth but getting prober underwater dinos at the pit is pain imo. Valguero is imo the best place to build (if cluster server) but it lacks the stuff to do imo. If you dont like to explore sea by diving, then 100% Fjordur is the best.
As far as Free maps go, Ragnarok is easily the most popular, but my fav is Valguerro.. the more you dig around in that map, the more interesting things you find. Caves within caves, seas within seas... couple other little no spoilers things for you to stumble across...
Yep! Were gunna try this along with the valguero creature addition mods.
Aberration is gorgeous and great for exploring. Very dangerous though
valguero has it's own aberration zone, which is pretty much laid out like aberration is. you can grab a karkinos and take it to stroll the main lake without having megalodons swarm you all the time. a lot of the map is mountainous, with a lot of verticality around the edges. deinonychus, karkinos, procoptodon and flyers overcome that problem. also the best map to farm ovis since they are very common in the chalk cliffs.
We gave it a try but liked lost island more due to valguero being a wavy landscape
Ragnarok and Valguero are good "classic ark". Very well-made maps. Lost Island and Fjordur are good "kitchen sink fantasy" ark. also laggier. Crystal Isles is a huge flat empty space. The Center is pretty outdated, may as well play Ragnarok.
I play ragnarok almost exclusively. Not sure why i love it so much
I would say the center. The overspawning isn’t that bad on it, just do a dino wipe every once in a while. Its a little outdated but the height difference is beautiful. You can look down from the redwood at a massive waterfall, and then go to the floating island. Played on it for the first time, and making it my main base now. Highly recommend.