According to a blog post by developer Smilegate, some players are having a “less than ideal experience,” and the company is implementing several measures to reduce queue times for those players.
The same items will be offered to players who purchased Founder’s Packs to gain early access to Lost Ark again if they switch to quieter servers as Smilegate attempts to spread out the massive number of players already online. The offer is being made due to the fact that existing characters cannot be transferred to new servers, and as a result, players will be forced to restart the game from the beginning with new character creations. Beginning anew would imply leaving behind the premium items acquired on the previous server, but according to Smilegate’s new promise, Founder’s Pack items will be available for players to use on any server of their choosing.
While this helps to make the process of switching servers a little less painful, there is an additional motivation. Those who purchase the Silver, Gold, or Platinum packs will also receive additional Royal Crystals, which can be used to purchase skins, mounts, stronghold decorations, and other items in the game’s in-game shop. To be eligible for the replicated items and Royal Crystals, you must switch servers and redeem your items by 12pm PT on February 14 in order to qualify.
There will also be more than a dozen additional servers made available to coincide with the launch of Lost Ark’s free-to-play mode, and the creation of new characters will be restricted “for the foreseeable future.”
Even before it is officially released later today, it has already established itself as one of Steam’s most popular games, surpassing titles such as Apex Legends and Injustice: Gods Among Us in terms of peak concurrent users.
At first, the large number of concurrent players logging on appeared to be causing some issues, with users reporting connectivity issues and increased queue times, prompting Smilegate to open another North American server shortly after early access began.
Lost Ark will be released as a completely free-to-play game on February 11 at 9 a.m. Pacific time, 12 p.m. Eastern time, and 5 p.m. UK time (which is February 12 at 4 a.m. AEDT).
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