Exactly a whole year to the day the MMORPG Lost Ark is here in the West at the start. MeinMMO author Mark Sellner refers to it as his favorite genre representative at every opportunity, but that wasn’t always the case.
About 8 years ago, in November 2014, I saw the very first trailer for Lost Ark and actually fell in love immediately. Even though I had a hard time getting used to the iso perspective, the world, the art style and the first gameplay looked terrific to me.
For years I kept hoping to be able to play this board myself one day and, also thanks to Amazon, the time had finally come on February 8, 2022, exactly one year ago the MMORPG also appeared in the West.
Of course I threw myself on it like no other game for a long time. I even threw a little LAN party with my friends for the release and celebrated the countdown to the last minute on a big screen in the room about as much as other people celebrate New Year’s Eve.
In short, the atmosphere was great and the anticipation for the world of Arkesia immense. It also lasted quite a long time, about 4 months for me personally. In that time, however, I hadn’t made it very far in the game.
Who writes here? Mark Sellner is an MMORPG author at MeinMMO and has already spent many hours in some genre representatives. Despite a long break, he has now played Lost Ark for over 1,500 hours and only in the first year. Still, he just can’t get enough of the title.
The great frustration meets boring tasks
I’m afraid my biggest problem with Lost Ark was myself. Because I think I just played the game completely wrong. Most of the problems other players had with it didn’t really bother me at all. In the beginning I even said that my biggest problem was that I couldn’t spend any more money.
Lost Ark offered a wide range of different classes when we started and I just couldn’t decide which to choose to continue. So my first act in the MMORPG consisted of pulling a whopping 8 characters through the story and getting them to level 50.
I made them all wait for the Shushire continent and Gearscore 600 before deciding who to go with. After a few weeks, however, this led to great frustration for me. Anyone who has played Lost Ark for a while knows how monotonous and boring Tier 1 can be.
So every day I logged in, did the Tier 1 Turtle Guardian Raid and two Chaos Dungeons with more and more characters. I didn’t even need the upgrade materials I gained anymore, since I already had all the characters at 600. To date I’ve stored over 2,000 unbound tier 1 jump stones, stupid me.
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The collecting tasks are the most fun
But in addition to the annoying everyday life that I forced myself on, there was still a ray of hope, namely the adventure tomes. This is a kind of checklist for collecting tasks in the different continents.
I could spend hours trying to find the next hidden quest, to really collect all the letters on the floor and to find every Mokoko seed, no matter how hidden. Even when I screw up and a bottle of wine calls me an idiot, I really love the game in those moments.
To this day I still enjoy opening my Adventure Tome and looking at a full list of continents that I have 100% completed. Exactly how I found all Mokoko Seeds and Masterpieces. Collecting quests in Lost Ark are some of the most fun things to do in this MMORPG.
And yet they were the reason I left the game after 4 months. After I decided on a character and continued to follow the story, namely to Rohendel, Lost Ark gave me a smack. Because suddenly collecting tasks work completely differently.
I was no longer able to 100% complete an area from Rohendel before exiting it. Far too many of the collection tasks were linked to other things, to daily tasks that sometimes take over a month to complete. Or to certain character values that I just hadn’t reached yet.
Struck by the monotony of doing the same 16 Guardian Raids a day, and then disappointed that I couldn’t do my favorite in-game quest the way I wanted, I left the MMORPG. I actually had a lot of fun and a lot of my friends felt the same way.
The comeback and the race to catch up
Then in September, after about 3.5 months of being away from Lost Ark, a buddy of mine managed to persuade me to revisit the MMORPG. He promised me that if I made it to endgame he would have a group for me to raid with. Alright, challenge accepted!
And indeed, this time the sparks jumped over. Instead of bothering myself with the new requirements of the collection tasks, I tried to build meaningful routines to work through them piece by piece. Also, I stopped running unnecessary Tier 1 Guardians anyway and just focused on one character now.
Within a few weeks I managed to catch up to Gearscore 1,415 and with Valtan the first Legion Raid was just around the corner. They really hooked me: while Valtan was really easy to do, I had bigger problems with the following Legion Raids, Vykas and Kakul-Saydon.
But I loved this challenge. It was just fun that you have to coordinate with your group, learn mechanics and noticeably keep improving. This culminated in the release of the latest Legion Raid, Brelshaza. We are currently traveling there with a full group of 8 and have been able to fight our way through the first 4 of 6 gates so far. I have never had so much fun raiding in any other MMORPG.
The optimization possibilities fascinate me
I’ve now put over 1,500 hours into Lost Ark, more than half of it since I started back in September. And I have no intention of stopping just yet. Because I’ve arrived completely and still have so much to do. That’s enough for the next 1,500 hours and longer.
My active roster currently consists of 6 characters over Gearscore 1,460, but of course I’m not happy with that. Not only do I want to increase my Gearscore, I also want to try more and more builds, maybe increase the quality of my equipment and also equip the last character with 5 level 3 engravings.
But it shouldn’t stay with the 6 characters. There are currently 18 different characters on my account and I would like to have each of them at least in Tier 3 in order to be able to flexibly adjust my gold roster. I decided to forgo the power pass and knowledge transfer because I enjoy leveling up.
Routine becomes fun that you always look forward to
The weekly and daily quests are fun because I have a group for them now and they’re more challenging than they used to be. I’m downright sad when I’m done with all the weekly quests and raids, usually sometime during the weekend.
A year after its release, I love Lost Ark even more than at any other time. Even in spite of its problems and quirks. It’s not a perfect game and it’s not for everyone, but it’s the perfect MMORPG for me and I’m looking forward to the next 1,500 hours.
Because with the last lines in this article, I’m ceremoniously ringing in the end of the day and making my way to the brand new continent of Rowen, where hopefully numerous collecting tasks are waiting for me again. I’m happy and maybe I’ll meet one or the other of you who will now give Lost Ark a second chance, it’s worth it.
That would make you one of many, because even in January 2023, Lost Ark is still one of the 10 MMORPGs with the most players on Steam.