Following issues on launch day, the Korean free-to-play MMO Lost Ark has since managed to pull in a dedicated and sizeable playerbase. The game managed to break 500,000 concurrent players on Steam during early access, and within 24 hours after release, it broke the all-time concurrent player records of CS-GO and Dota 2 with a staggering 1,324,761 players. Last week, Amazon Games and Smilegate took to the game’s official blog for a hefty helping of transparency, promising improvements and fixes in patches to come.
Lost Ark‘s next weekly update is coming tomorrow, and along with some new content, players can expect a new fraud and bot prevention system. Bots have proved to be one of the most sweeping problems with the game–just two weeks ago, over a million bot accounts were banned. Some players use bots to gain advantages over other players with little consequence. In a free-to-play game, making another account after one is banned is a breeze. Amazon Games has a solution.
After the new update, users that have spent under $5 on Steam will have their accounts restricted. This means that they won’t be able to initiate trades with other players, send in-game gifts, exchange Royal Crystals for gold, or send in-game mail with any attachments. The bot problem won’t disappear entirely with the implementation of this new system, but it should help in a major way.
“Our goal is for players to always enjoy their time in Lost Ark, safe from users engaging in fraudulent purchases or the negative impact bots have on both the economy and player experience,” the newest Lost Ark blog post reads.
“The only dangers in Arkesia should be the Demonic hordes, voracious wildlife, and colossal Guardians. We strive to remain both flexible and transparent, listen to feedback, and create the best experience possible.
Lost Ark was fully released in its free-to-play format on February 11, 2021. On March 8, it was announced that the title had surpassed 20 million players worldwide.
