Lost Ark - February 11, 2022

[Kachiko]

The CBT were locked to Korean IPs and accounts, and it's likely the open beta will also be that way. Rulke is correct in that you'd need an account and then a Korean VPN that you have to stay connected to or the game will disconnect. There's been talk of a google translated patch, but I didn't see anything like that in any streams or fan sites so far. They want to bring this out of Korea, but no timeline. That said, it's not particularly hard to get an account, once open beta comes around, as there are sites that sell them, but the VPN would also be required. When I played KTERA, I paid a site for an account, but never had to deal with VPN back then, and I didn't know any Korean, yet was still able to make my way through the game.

[Kachiko]

Smilegate is showcasing Lost Ark, on September 17th: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=206590


"Today (Sept 5th), Smilegate announced that they will be showcasing their new MMORPG 'Lost Ark', the flagship online game developed by Smile Gate RPG. Held on September 17th aimed primarily at the the media, the showcase will explain the development process since the Final CBT in May, and will introduce the service plan for the future.

'Lost Ark' is the flagship Hack & Slash MMORPG that was first introduced by Smilegate in 2014. Since its initial announcement, 'Lost Ark' has gone through three development tests, focusing first on establishing the game mechanisms and structures and eventually increasing completeness during in the final test. ​ Expect more details to emerge after September 17th when Smilegate introduces the results of the Third CBT's feedback and the service plan for the upcoming flagship title, 'Lost Ark'."

[Kachiko]

OBT Announcement: Launch : 11/7





Translated updates, from Reddit:


The following are the changes made for the OBT:

• We have been experimenting with ways to make skills feel more impactful. Will be reintroducing blood effects
• Skills are being tweaked to clearly separate:
  
  • much shorter CD skills that can be spammed
  • longer CD skills that are situational
  
  
• Tripod has been tweaked so that each tier in the tripod feels more like a chain of effects rather than each tier feeling like its own bonus
• Better AI, new patterns, changes to content where players had no other option than to just circle tank
• Identity skills : every class has received balance changes or overhauls to identity skills to better fit the class style
• PVE/PVP balance separation. Skill damage adjustments/CC duration etc are different for PVE and PVP
• Ways to increase MS in town, such as mounting in town
• Item set effects to add depth to farming
• Balance chaos dungeon rewards. Chaos dungeon rewards were deemed too overbalanced since it has unlimited entry
• Field Boss / Secret Dungeon rewards are now going to be based on contribution
• Skip prologue/cutscene

Updates in official release will be based on:

• Seasonal updates:
  
  • will be like a brand new expansion, completely overhauling endgame content meta
  
  
• Episodes:
  
  • New story, new NPCs, new regions
  • New activities and collectibles
  
  
• Middle Updates:
  
  • Endgame update : higher tier raids, dungeons, gear
  
  

Will continue to work on visual updates.

• Housing System: build your own island (mobile game land building style)
• Invite NPCs with high amity, dress them
• Able to gather resources

Silmael battlefield:

• Available for soloqueue, guild v guild, or queue as party
• Areas in battlefield include areas focused on PVE if you don't like PVP

Epic Raids:

• New raid that requires a large number of people
• Map interaction mechanics (Should feel more like a traditional raid vs current raids which are Munster Hunter Lost Ark edition)
• Many ways to clear

Roguelike mode:

• Death = start over
• I don't think it's synonymous to the diablo 3 hardcore mode, since the screenshot looked like they were playing something different. Maybe a in-game activity rather than being a full blown hardcore character that plays through the same exact content. Not sure

Class updates:

• new class will be included

Region/Island updates:

• Lots of new islands are currently in development
• New region will be included
• Existing regions will have more story and content such as side quests

Business model:

• Inventory will be offered to everyone, but storage expansion will cost money
• Some gear will directly/indirectly (not specified) be acquired faster for paying players (I think this is referring to the dungeon entries)
• Highest tier gear cannot be obtained any faster by spending money
• Skins
• Mounts
• Recustomize character ticket
• Increased dungeon entries
• Convenience: life tools, pets, storage, time reduction, Resurrection charms

[Viq]

For people the registered for the open beta, the client is now available for download. Also, character creation is up as well.

I'm downloading it now, and the client is just under 24GB

[Bombur]

With that, a new Trailer !

[Viq]

I finally got around to making my character in anticipation of OBT next week. The four initial servers are already capped, so they added two more. One of those is already capped. It seems like there is more interest then they were expecting, but it doesn't bode well for a smooth launch. I guess we'll see how it goes next week.

[Kachiko]

I was interested in trying it, but they've locked it out of korean hands pretty well. With Blizzard announcing a Diablo mobile game, this is set to fill a good PC market, when it does come over.

[Bombur]

Right now, in the cash shop you can buy founder packs. They range from $30, $50, and $70.

The highest tier package offers a costume set that gives stats. It has +4% power and +70 charm stat on the 4-piece set overall. I herd you can craft this set latter in the game though.

You also get 700 blue crystals(currency exchange for ingame gold or obtain with quests/achievements), a fast mount, one box of trading cards(used for minigames), a box of potions to help you in battle, and a box of gifts to give to npcs(loyalty system).

Lots of players are saying this is P2W, and are complaining about it.

[Viq]

The bigger complaint in-game and on Inven is that bots are already all over the place.

The next complaint that is popping up a lot, and is my current biggest issue with the game, is that it is really shallow. It's fast and flashy, but once the novelty of the skill effects wears off, none of the classes are all that complicated. Identity skills, with the exception of maybe Bard, are just something you mash on cooldown. They went too far in trying to make a clear cooldown gap between your basic moves and finishers that the whole combat experience comes down to rolling across your keyboard, and then hitting everything as it comes off cooldown.

I've been mainly playing Arcana, which should have some more depth to it. Some skills add to a stack counter on each enemy they hit, and your finishers will deal damage proportionate to the number of stacks. In practice, the cooldowns are so long on the finishers that anything you fight will be at full stacks before your finisher is off CD.

I'm going to keep playing in hopes that it gets better 50+, but so far it is just a prettier Mu Legend.

[Bombur]

Well I found out some good things and bad things about the game today.

The Good


You can craft avatars from raid loot that are better than the stuff sold in the shop.


The Bad


The 2 "prestige" mounts in the game cost 198,000 mileage points each. You get 100 points for every $1 you spend, so you will need to spend a little under $2000 to have enough points to buy one of the mounts...

[Viq]

Despite all the griping people have been doing, it sure seems to be popular. Every server (they're up to 7 now, I think) is at capacity, and I've been in a 9000+ person queue two nights in a row. I literally went out, got a meal and came home. I'm still behind 3058 people. I mean, I don't know what Smilegate's ability to add server capacity is, but I sure hope they figure out something. The game isn't worth waiting 2 hours to log in for.

[arus2001]

I doubt they intended this beta for gaijin audiences, either.

Honestly, it's not surprising a new MMO has hype since I think the last major release was lolBless, but how long that lasts pretty much relies on the first 6-12 months of post-launch patching.

[Kachiko]

Whether they intend it or not, it's getting near 40K viewers on Twitch, and #5 when I just looked at it, so it's getting exposure. Game still looks incredibly fun.

[Viq]

It's not whitey that is the problem. China has been going full blast on this shit. It's almost 11PM here in Korea, so 10PM in China. Every server has a 15000+ queue, even the server that just opened today. Smilegate is under a ton of pressure from Korean players to add extra verification methods on log in to make it harder for Chinese (and consequently EU and NA dudes) from getting logging on.

[Tokitoki]

Reports of requests for re-verification coming in. Couple streamers got kicked with the request.

[Viq]

Good, maybe I'll actually get to play tomorrow. Between servers being down Sunday night and queues, I haven't been able to get as far as character select since Friday.

[Bombur]

Servers were down yesterday because Lost Ark got smacked by Chinese hackers who were able modify the launcher so they could bypass it and get into the game while no one else could. Thus flooding the server's with bots. Smilegate has patched it but a round of re-verification notices are going out when people try to log in, reports are suggesting it's NordVPN and ExitLag users affected. Any of you guys that bought an account may want to test to see if you still have access to the game.

That said, Smilegate has plans for an English localization patch with the next game update, so maybe a western release isn't as far off as we think.

[Viq]

Welp, still a 12000 queue tonight, so whatever measures they've taken haven't been super effective.

[Kachiko]

The game is just that popular, and accounts can be re-verified, however many that might actually be. The only way the situation improves is for more servers to be added, and global/china shipped asap. Also, where was the comment about an English patch from? Dev twitter or something official or just rumor?

[Bombur]

People have been talking about it online, and on the forums. MMO byte talked about it in a trailer at the 3 min mark.