Lost Ark coming to NA/EU! Smilegate to pair with Amazon Game Studios as Publisher!

[Leyre]

So, after playing for ~40 hours...

Leveling is just so god damn awful:

2.5D world. It's literally a series of tubes. And it feels like you're squeezed through that tube. Going from quest to quest is like going through a corridor. 3D world like in WoW makes you feel like you're traveling somewhere, it's such a small thing - being able to get to quest from any angle instead of sliding one tube - but it's huge. Quests are linear AF too. They appear one by one. WTF. After rising tons of alts on WoW through the years - I don't mind questing. But on Lost Ark - no way I'm leveling another character. No fucking way.

Pacing. Pacing is fuuuuuuucked. Royally fucked. You start at level 10 with 6 abilities - what? Then you get into progressing - clear an area, clear a dungeon, get some skill points, get new gear. Then you hit level 50 in that China continent and game just grinds to a halt. You stop progressing - no new skill points, no gear, all you can do is take one quest after another going through a tube. This was the point when I wanted to quit. And then, you complete 5 quests in Vern - boom everything unlocks at once. Tons and tons of shit unlocks all at once. Pacing is fucked.

---

Islands. They are fun. Little out of place experiences. Love them. Just went to a Reverly Row island, completed Una's task there to hand out cocktails, co-op event to dance started. Had a great time. Music was nice too.

PvP. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is what will keep me playing. It's so much fun. Diablo 3 could have been this if Blizzard was competent. Also, don't believe fanboy lies about "lost ark is not p2w, pvp is normalized" - yeah in the open world it's not normalized. At all. Prepare to get screwed later in game when you will want to complete some quests.

Dungeons - they are fun. It's because it's fun to pulverize tons of mobs with over the top looking skills.

Casual content - there's so much of it. I will be collecting shit for years between PvP matches.

Design - oh it's Korean. Smilegate remind me of another Korean company - Hyundai. Like, Hyundais have nothing individual. No design language. They just steal some bits of various other cars and try to make it work. Same with Smilegate - they even added Warhammer marines. Lost Ark is like Hyundai i30n - cheap soulless mash of stolen ideas, but does put a smile on my face.

---

Overall - if players won't quit during fucked up leveling experience, they will most likely stay, because there's stuff for a lot of different people, and way more to come.

apparently you can get an alt to 50 in 8 hours by paying gold

https://lostarkive.com/guides/beginn...t-in-lost-ark/

[ldev]

apparently you can get an alt to 50 in 8 hours by paying gold

https://lostarkive.com/guides/beginn...t-in-lost-ark/

You get one pass for completing Vern and another from somewhere else (I forgot), so no need to pay gold for two chars.

[Skizzit]

Enjoying the game thus far. Mostly just been making alts to try out different classes and so far I quite like the Artillerist and the Sorceress. It isn't the next big thing, but it is a fun time waster.

Surprised to hear people were hitting queues. I have not any issues like that. I will say that, much like early New World, they need shorter afk timers. I am pretty sure I walked away for at least 30 min. and was still logged in.

[bbr]

NL and BE can't play because the game has lootboxes and some EU regulation says that means we should have no access to the game.

Uncool...

[Gorsameth]

NL and BE can't play because the game has lootboxes and some EU regulation says that means we should have no access to the game.

Uncool...

Not EU regulation, national regulation from NL and BE. Most games get around it by disabling the feature, aka you can play FIFA in BE but not buy the lootboxes.
I have also seen some say that LA might not fall under those laws anyway but either way, Amazon appears to not be interested in figuring out how to deal with it and instead decides to just not release it there.

(Tho apparently its not hard to circumvent with a VPN)

[Twoddle]

So much foiliage, integrated GPU can't run it at 60fps even with everything on low.

Gave it a try for a few hours as a martial artist. Haven't bothered to read what each spell actually does yet, I hope there's more to it than continuously rolling your fingers over spell keys to fight and playing whack-a-mole with the CDs.

But not sure I wanna play another time sinking MMO, I don't feel the addiction factor like there was with WoW. And then there's the Pay-to-win / Pay-to-progress faster nonsense as part of the actual game made obvious by some of the currencies, that's a no no for me in the long run.

[Forteofgray]

So much foiliage, integrated GPU can't run it at 60fps even with everything on low.

Gave it a try for a few hours as a martial artist. Haven't bothered to read what each spell actually does yet, I hope there's more to it than continuously rolling your fingers over spell keys to fight and playing whack-a-mole with the CDs.

But not sure I wanna play another time sinking MMO, I don't feel the addiction factor like there was with WoW. And then there's the Pay-to-win / Pay-to-progress faster nonsense as part of the actual game made obvious by some of the currencies, that's a no no for me in the long run.

you really shouldn't be surprised that your integrated gpu isn't running a game at 60fps.

[Twoddle]

you really shouldn't be surprised that your integrated gpu isn't running a game at 60fps.

To be honest I wasn't surprised for this particular game but I had to test, WoW and Hots run fine at 60fps on low gpu settings, shadows, AA, bloom, particles etc. which I do not miss one bit.

[Karlz0rz]

Supporting such a business model in a MMORPG? Oh my. Are you a fan of in-app purchases on mobile?

I'm just saying, even if a game is free to play, you should support them in some way if you enjoy their product.
If you get 10-20 hours of minimum enjoyment, I think it's fair to spend 10 dollars as a way to show them your support.
People easily shell out that kind of money on a 2 hour movie at the cinema, so why not a game?

[THEORACLE64]

Played it for like half an hour, and yeah, it isn't for me. Not really worth the hype.

[bbr]

Not EU regulation, national regulation from NL and BE. Most games get around it by disabling the feature, aka you can play FIFA in BE but not buy the lootboxes.
I have also seen some say that LA might not fall under those laws anyway but either way, Amazon appears to not be interested in figuring out how to deal with it and instead decides to just not release it there.

(Tho apparently its not hard to circumvent with a VPN)

yeah, but also tricky due to steam restrictions, and possible ip bans if they find out.

I'm just saying, even if a game is free to play, you should support them in some way if you enjoy their product.
If you get 10-20 hours of minimum enjoyment, I think it's fair to spend 10 dollars as a way to show them your support.
People easily shell out that kind of money on a 2 hour movie at the cinema, so why not a game?

"being active" is a form of support.
as is recommending the game to friends.
Not everyone has a big budget available for games ^^ even f2p games

To be honest I wasn't surprised for this particular game but I had to test, WoW and Hots run fine at 60fps on low gpu settings, shadows, AA, bloom, particles etc. which I do not miss one bit.

wow isnt a very young game at this point.
and it's been super optimized over the years.

[Fencers]

Saying ARPG and Action RPG aren't the same thing, has definitely gotta be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

That's like saying FPS and First Person Shooters are different genres.

Fucking hell, lol.

The Witcher 3 and Path of Exile are different types of games. Action RPGs and ARPGs have become two distinct genres over time. That is the nature of genre labeling. What something starts as doesn't mean that is what it will remain. Any genre label without specificity is not useful; it's counter to the purpose of a genre label.

The directors of Lost Ark said the game ought not to be compared to Diablo or World of Warcraft on their own Youtube channel as well. That is a different style of game than presented in Lost Ark. The Reddit for Lost Ark has far more posts where players are disappointed it is not an ARPG or Diablo-like game than posts saying it is the latter in lieu of being an MMORPG.

How we talk about games is extremely important.

[Karlz0rz]

"being active" is a form of support.
as is recommending the game to friends.
Not everyone has a big budget available for games ^^ even f2p games

Yeah, and I think that's fair. Some people really don't have the budget for it, we all come from different places in life.
But I'd also wager that most people can afford to show monetary support, even if it's not a massive amount :P.

[Fencers]

Supporting such a business model in a MMORPG? Oh my. Are you a fan of in-app purchases on mobile?

Well, if he is enjoying the game there is no real difference between paying for what he enjoys in one game or another. Really shouldn't matter if it's a mobile game or not. A lot of folks might find a lot of value in the 30 day auras LA offers for the time they will play it.

[Jazzhands]

Supporting such a business model in a MMORPG? Oh my. Are you a fan of in-app purchases on mobile?

When it's done right, sure. Lost Ark's sub is only 10$ a month, WoW's is 15$, so in lost Ark I get not only my monthly sub but also a bunch of extras for the same price. I get just as much enjoyment out of the game as I did in WoW, but my money gets me more. Seems like a win-win for me, and I could care less if whales wanna whale, it just puts more money into a game I like and keeps it afloat. Lost Ark even allows you to get Crystalline Aura without paying, so that 15$ a month could go even further for fun stuff like cosmetics. The only time cash shops really suck is when they provide player power, that I do not support.

[Fencers]

Christ, queue of 5k, and 10 minutes it's only gone down by 200...

People that paid should get priority queuing over the players playing for free tbh. :|

I would be down for that as well.

[Fencers]

So far, I'm enjoying the game enough to have spent about 8 hours playing today. Only about 10 of which were in a queue.

The biggest drawback is that's it's F2P, and as such attracts every piece of shit gamer out there. I don't need rampant racism and/or holocaust jokes in the games I play. Area chat might as well be unmoderated Twitch chat.

I also encountered a toxic chat environment. There is a minimize button if anyone is unaware that hides the chat completely.

Edit: Two players gathering at the same tree is one of the most marvelous animations I have ever seen in a game.

[Skizzit]

Does each class have their own unique instrument for the teleport/recall thing? The Artillerist rocks out with an electric guitar. It's awesome.

[Djuntas]

I have 1 question - Anyone here using windows moved mode and got it to work properly with streching the window to the right size? Some games always suck at this, and I just wanna play with that only in all my games...Borderless or Full screen just aint my preference.

[Mendzia]

Supporting such a business model in a MMORPG? Oh my. Are you a fan of in-app purchases on mobile?

Imagine comparing p2w shitty mobile games to Lost Ark...
If the end content will be good i will happily give them even more money to support their work.

I also encountered a toxic chat environment. There is a minimize button if anyone is unaware that hides the chat completely.

I do the same thing... too many people to report.