Lost Ark Online

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Zindan

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,604
4,400
With so many skills available, I doubt the game will ever have solid controller support. We might get to play it in a couple years or so.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,071
9,100
Maybe? As long as you have a muscle memory tutorial for each skill slot available thats good I dont see how it would be a problem.
 

Nabi

Trakanon Raider
48
141
This is going into open beta on 11/7 which is pretty much the launch.


If anyone wants to check it out, I'll be able to verify a couple accounts. PM me if interested.
 
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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
On one hand I really want to play but on the other I feel like I don't want to bother until it's released in the west. This is definitely what I expect Diablo4 will be like though, shit looks pretty great.
 

Zindan

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,604
4,400
Yea, I feel the same way, its a game I want to play, but just not while its KR only. I'm curious though, the game has a lot of depth to it in terms of Story / activities, but does it have a loot chase like Diablo?
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
Yea, I feel the same way, its a game I want to play, but just not while its KR only. I'm curious though, the game has a lot of depth to it in terms of Story / activities, but does it have a loot chase like Diablo?
Gear looks more like standard korean mmo than ARPG. As far as I can tell you only get static drops or crafts, no RNG stuff, it comes with the usual mmo quality colors(green blue purple orange) and item level, then you can upgrade these items with the usual korean systems with special powders and failure rates and what not. Upgrading them gives them random skills at certain tresholds which can be rerolled with other items(probably cash shop shit, although you get some from quests too so maybe daily/weekly stuff). There's also runes with generic stats(resists, damage against type, base stats like str/int whatever), ability stones with other generic stats and you can enchant rings with special skills/modifiers like immunity during dash or increased attack/movespeed with penalty to ressource regen and such. And then you have ability improvement systems and a bunch of other shit, but too lazy to go through all of it.

It looks like it has some depth but not sure if it's not just going to be "X is better than everything else so just stack that in all systems" kind of shit.
 
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xzi

Mouthbreather
7,526
6,763
Certainly been on my radar for a minute, but I'm just so sad it's a Korean developer. Shit is certainly going to have a p2w cash shop. Also the chance of it coming to the west if it's an actual good game seem low lmfao
 
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Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,437
2,599
It feels like this has been in development for 10 years. It looks pretty amazing. I hope it's good, and is ported here.

Not going to play the open beta, but if I ever have nothing else to play, I'll probably play in Korean at some point, especially if someone makes an English patch for it.

I also think Diablo 4 will be something similar. I hope it's something similar, if they can mix the Diablo loot chase with a persistent aspect to it, it could be a lot of fun.
 
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Zindan

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,604
4,400
I want to say that they already have plans on bringing it to the West, just no timeframe.
 

Chersk

Trakanon Raider
1,338
1,195
Why does it take so long to bring stuff like this west? Translation and voice acting...should be a couple months worth of work at best.
 
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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
Why does it take so long to bring stuff like this west? Translation and voice acting...should be a couple months worth of work at best.
We don't know if it's going to take long or not? Game hasn't released yet in korea, it's literally entering open beta next week or whenever. It's quite possible this will release in the next 6months in the west.
 

Chersk

Trakanon Raider
1,338
1,195
We don't know if it's going to take long or not? Game hasn't released yet in korea, it's literally entering open beta next week or whenever. It's quite possible this will release in the next 6months in the west.

I'm speaking more historically when it comes to Korean/Eastern games. It seems like it typically takes them a year or (sometimes much) longer to make their way to us after they've been released in their native country.
 
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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
I'm speaking more historically when it comes to Korean/Eastern games. It seems like it typically takes them a year or (sometimes much) longer to make their way to us after they've been released in their native country.
Well it really depends on the game but I think they treat the western market as the lower priority one, a lot of these games come out in China first for example, and then they do the western stuff. They could do it in parallel but I guess but they need to find a company to do their work overseas to delegate all the stuff like localization, marketing, renting servers etc so it makes more sense to do it one region at a time. The translation also takes a fair bit of time quite often cause there's a lot of text in mmos, and they usually won't have many people working on it, plus I'd assume korean translators aren't that common.
 
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Tauntworth

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
1,219
6,281
Why does it take so long to bring stuff like this west? Translation and voice acting...should be a couple months worth of work at best.

Wish they'd just trash localization when it comes to VA. I can't remember the last Asian MMO that I gave 2 shits about the story. Even FF14's world feels soulless to me. Maybe it's cause I'm whitey and just can't identify with it. They're always generic and for the most part the worlds dont feel alive. Save the time/money and just give us the game. I'd be happy w/ the original voice actors and subtitles honestly. Especially as Valderen Valderen said, it feels like this game has been in development for a decade. It's so old that when they started, UE3 was the shit and is unfortunately still the engine used.
 

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
20,914
37,912
Well it really depends on the game but I think they treat the western market as the lower priority one, a lot of these games come out in China first for example, and then they do the western stuff. They could do it in parallel but I guess but they need to find a company to do their work overseas to delegate all the stuff like localization, marketing, renting servers etc so it makes more sense to do it one region at a time. The translation also takes a fair bit of time quite often cause there's a lot of text in mmos, and they usually won't have many people working on it, plus I'd assume korean translators aren't that common.

That's where you're wrong. Denver, anywhere in CA, probably more than a few places in NY have a Koreatown. Any 2nd gen is going to be able to do that shit instantaneously, and there are a lot of them. Just googled korean translation and got plenty of hits.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
That's where you're wrong. Denver, anywhere in CA, probably more than a few places in NY have a Koreatown. Any 2nd gen is going to be able to do that shit instantaneously, and there are a lot of them. Just googled korean translation and got plenty of hits.
I mean, you need professionals, not some guy in college that speaks casual conversation korean because his parents still speak korean in their house. But yeah maybe there's a lot of companies that do it, don't know. Considering how fucking trash most of the translations are in korean games though, there's probably not that many that work at the dirt wages those companies are paying, or not that many who can translate large volumes in a reasonable time window like a video game necessitates.

There's still all the localization stuff too that takes time, adapting the game to fit the western tastes better, mostly in terms of microtransactions, pricing and such. When the companies have to ask for the devs to modify stuff for their own version it takes time(stuff like uncapping daily "stamina" limits to enter dungeons or adding better solo leveling systems or increasing the chances to +10 an item without having to use a cash shop item etc), which is why I think they usually release territory by territory and as I mentionned, China comes way ahead in this in general, because Chinese players are totally ok spending retarded amounts of money on Gatcha and other F2P schemes.
 

Balroc

Molten Core Raider
1,064
229
People are streaming this. It's looking like a hardcore pay2win and pay more2grind. Hard pass (until it goes F2P, of course.)

Oh, and I know all Korean games are like this but have some fucking decency when it comes to gouging players.
 

Avatar of Nyx

Molten Core Raider
1,228
457
I won't be able to fire it up until I get in from work this evening but hearing the p2w stuff is really discouraging. Im not sure why I expected any different, but I guess Ill see how bad it is before deciding how much time to sink into a game I cant read.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,018
2,233
I won't be able to fire it up until I get in from work this evening but hearing the p2w stuff is really discouraging. Im not sure why I expected any different, but I guess Ill see how bad it is before deciding how much time to sink into a game I cant read.
I haven't seen a good list of what is offered in the shop yet, not sure if it's deactivated during the open beta? They have a website but it's only a preview of the shop.

Things it has atm: Avatars(costumes) with stats, unique mounts, system where you spend x and get rewards for each tier, consumables that increase xp rate, other types of materials/consumables, launch packages(just a bunch of stuff for cheaper in a big package, usual for F2P games, highest is 60$ I believe). Sadly their website is getting fucked and it's timing out even though it's the middle of the night in korea so can't check exactly what the items are, just seeing the page on a stream.

Anyway avatars is definitely the main issue, but it's unclear if you can get similar quality avatars ingame or if you have to go through the cash shop, and if they can be sold to other players(which is still kinda meh since it lets players buy gold basically). The main complaint I see is that the avatars come with charisma, which lets you do sidequests without progressing your relationship with the NPCs(I think similar to BDO stuff, some other kMMOs do that too) so you can do them right away at lvl 1. It's unclear wether those sidequests actually matter at all though.

Consumables and shit was expected, but again it's unclear just what they affect and how good they are. Almost every korean mmo has these, but in some cases they're just like retarded casual package stuff, like "I can't fucking dodge anything and I don't have money ingame so I buy potions on the cash shop" kind of thing. In some others, they give a tangible advantage over ingame consumables, by giving you self rez options without penalties for example. There's also some sort of powder/crystal shit that might be crafting/upgrading materials, which as anyone who's played a korean mmo before knows, is probably not a good thing since you'll be failling upgrades a lot and being able to just credit card your way through the RNG for gear upgrades is a big nono.

Anyway, so far it looks pretty bad, but I haven't seen a good detailed explanation, just some guy showing the website which doesn't let you see exact stats, partly because people are probably not high level enough to know exactly how much of an impact things have, and partly because I think the cash shop might not be open until launch.

Anyway I think for this type of game what matters is the F2P experience, once they bring it in the west. If you can say, spend 60bucks and then not have to spend more and not feel like a 3rd class citizen, it's fine in my book. If you have to spend 60bucks a month to stay competitive, they can go fuck themselves. Hitting that sweetspot between P2W and "P2W but playable" is what matters for western releases of this type of game I think. Obviously some people are still completely against the 2nd category, but I don't mind so much if the game is fun, I don't have an aversion to spending "some" money on games, just I'm never going to spend 200bucks on a game, unless it's over a very long period of time(sub based mmos, or path of exile for example).
 

Avatar of Nyx

Molten Core Raider
1,228
457
I did some reading on the Lost Ark reddit during lunch and there's a thread about the shop and the debate about whether it's p2win or "p2faster". The director of the game claims the shop is p2faster meaning nothing in the shop is exclusive, only you get it earlier/quicker etc. People are claiming the game has avatars that are buyable with in game money that will come with stats but that the ones bought in game don't have that charisma stat. I guess that's p2w to a degree but if I can still get from point A to B by playing the game and not spending cash I wont sweat it.

It'll be a good litmus test playing the Korean version a bit because if the cash shop is too predatory then that'll be a strong indication as to how disgusting our version will be once a western publisher gets a hold of it. I'm looking at you, Archeage....