The weekend is here at last! My butt is wedged into its seat and will not move except for the most vital of reasons! After days of experiencing only fleeting amounts of this game, I am now able to indulge in a whole two days of experiencing Arkesia!
The game officially launched today. It's now free-to-play for many, many regions. And apparently there were quite a few hiccups with this official launch but thankfully I was asleep during most of it. 🤣 When I awoke I was able to sit back, relax, Hive for a bit, tried the game but couldn't, so did some chores, grabbed an iced coffee from the lovely conveniently-placed shop down the road, and when I got back home... just a few minutes later all was ready and it was time to begin!
Also, I just want to say: THIS POOR WOMAN. Imagine being the only community support manager tackling the great influx of social media hatred, on launch day of all days.
Having lurked on the forums for months now, there is definitely more than one community manager, and I've seen them online all at the same time multiple times. Why not on Launch Day? Amazon really needs a kick in the scrotum.
First of all, I'm grateful that they stopped people being able to join my server and locked it to only those who already have rostered characters. 😅 I'm on Valtan, the unofficial OCE server, and it's definitely got more aussies on it than americans. Most of area chat is aussies talking, and the occasional salty murican telling us to get off their NA West server and go to our own. Would love to, mate! But we don't have our own!
I wish we did... today's ping, after having a stable 203ms during headstart, hovered anywhere between 300 and 600, with spikes all the way to 2800. Ughhhhh.
There were also so many more aussies planning to start today as the game launched into it's proper free-to-play form -- the Discord has 3000 people in it! And while I'm sad that they won't be able to join the rest of us... well... with all of them we'd have 8 hour queues, so, I'll selfishly wave goodbye to them and hope to see them when Amazon makes us an OCE server we can transfer to. (Seriously, how hard would it have been to just convert a dead New World server to Lost Ark?)
Today in Lost Ark, I finally got to the bit I've been excited for: gathering all the materials I can and being given my Stronghold!
And now I finally understand why people feel as though this game has a mobile feel to it. Many of the things in the Stronghold are time-gated, but these things can be completed instantly with crystals or have the time reduced by other purchasable means.
That doesn't really bother me, to be honest. I'm not in a rush to get everything built ASAP and I like the gradual pace. Maybe if things start taking an entire week to build I'll glare a little bit and shake my fist, but overall, it's not that bad in my opinion.
What is annoying, for me, is that there's a damned Labour Point system when it comes to gathering. That turned me off Archeage SO BADLY. But they implemented theirs pretty shockingly. Like, you couldn't even open a coinpurse without spending LP. In Lost Ark it's just for gathering, and for the stronghold, and there are energy potions so you can refill your energy.
You can also buy the energy potions on the store........... not going to lie, it's possible I might throw a few dollars at the store to get a giant stash of energy potions so I can gather forever.
I mean, I should have expected this system from a Korean game. Pretty much all of them have limits in place due to a lot of their gaming population being utterly obsessed and literally dying due to excessive videogaming. But I was hoping, really hoping, that they just might remove such things for their western audience.
Alas.
As pictured above, I tried to woo the King to convince him to remove the Life Energy limits on my person, but also alas. 🤣
(After doing a bit of reading, apparently there is an area later on where you can gather with no need to worry about Life Energy. ~The Platinum Fields.~ However. You won't level up your skills there.)
While in the city, after failing to woo the King, I came across someone with a freakin' dinosaur mount! This mount is not available in the real money store, so part of me hopes that I can acquire it in-game somehow. But knowing my luck it's a Twitch reward, and fuck Twitch.
If it was a one hour of watching thing, sure, just turn it on and do something else while it's on in the background. But most of the Lost Ark Twitch things I've seen so far require FOUR HOURS of it, or actually paying attention to the stream so you're told when to say something in the chat so you can be rewarded.
Ugh.
No thank you.
(After investigating, you get the dinosaur mount for working on your Adventurer's Tome!! Yay!!)
Anyway, when it comes to crafting and making your stronghold prettier, it costs quite a few of the gold currency. So I'm holding off for now until I better know the game and discover what else gold might be used for.
I also need to discover what I can sell on the Auction House and for how much. If all goes to plan, I'll be a master trader and will make all the gold and will have the greatest stronghold in all the land!
In the meantime, I'll gather what I can and learn what blueprints I can and when I'm prepared, I'll have a lot to work with. 😈 I like to hope anyway.
Today I did quite a few quests and progressed a little bit through the game! 😊 I didn't really do much collecting, I figured I'd save that sort of stuff for my "casual days" when I don't have much time to dedicate to grinding away an MMO. So. Every day except weekends. xD
One of the story-progressing dungeons I did today was one of the most interesting dungeons I've done in any game in a while. It actually felt pretty hectic and I was on my toes the whole time -- it was great!
This great demon leapt around. It was breaking everything, setting everything on fire, and you could. not. stop. or you would perish.
Best dungeon I've experienced so far!
Apparently if you're really dedicated, you can complete the entire main story in one day. I'm not dedicated and I like exploring and messing around. Tonight I reached level 35 and I still have a shit-load of stuff to go. Doubt I'm anywhere near close to finishing anything!
And I'm fine with that. I don't get why people want to rush things ASAP, especially in a brand new game.
I love having a new MMO to explore and mess around in. And even better, this is an MMO that caters to my needs as a mostly single-player. I can't recommend it enough. Even on shitty ping.
Looking forward to what tomorrow brings!
Until next time! 😄🎵
and are from the game: Lost Ark.