Lost Ark Online

That's true, but a lot of the complaints are because they half assed it, giving us only pieces of T3.

Pyros said:

That's a bad take, every mmo ever takes a massive dip after release. The numbers only go back up when new content/expansions release, and slightly over time if the game is successful. Wow sells millions of boxes every expansion, and 3months later everyone's gone, same for FFXIV, and every mmo that has launched was completely full at launch and loses 50-75% of their pop a month or two later.

Also saying it's on the same trajectory than New World because it lost half of its playerbase, even though the remaining half is almost more than New World had its peak is a bit disingenuous. Honestly the game is probably performing way above expectations considering it's a korean grindfest. Will it last for years and be the most succesful mmo ever? Fuck no it's not even close, but let's not exagerate the other way, the game's doing very well, for now.

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I agree with most of what you're saying, but when people quit like WoW in between expansions it's because they've done all or most of the content and can't really progress any further. Most of the people dropping Lost Ark never even made it to tier 3.

I expected the drop off, but considering how strong the concurrent numbers were for the first few weeks, the current decline seems a bit steep. The game has enough issues for Western players without AGS bending over backwards to force those issues front and center for the sake of the mighty dollar. Literally doing the opposite of "Westernization."

Just like I pointed out on the New World thread - Steam charts is concurrent users, not unique users. Acting like this game is falling on its sword at 500k concurrent users is pretty asinine. An outrageous number of people dropped at least a hundred bucks on this games platinum pack, much less doubling up on packs. Never mind the fact that Ive came across more than just a handful of people well into the 1400's, which is a screaming example of whaling. Especially when we're just talking about one server. If anything, Lost Ark is a huge success for a Korean game in the western market.

All we can hope for at this point, is for AGS/SG (doesnt f'n matter) to get their shit together and address (most) of Booze's issues. The market is fk'd due to bots, and the honing failures are extreme. With how the game works, bots have really, REALLY, fucked this game's core system up. Which should have never been the case since its been out since 2018.

Pyros said:

The decline is steep because the first few weeks were so high, honestly I don't think this was intended to be even a 500k concurent player game, the KR event had a much lower treshold for their free shit event stuff(was it 200k concurent?). The fact it's still this high is pretty big, 400k concurent or whatever it's at is a lot of ppl. The game can probably drop another half and still be more than fine. They will likely have to figure out server merging at some point though.

I agree the Argos shit was absolutely fuckery though, while I definitely get the "let's catchup to KR asap for the good content aka legion raids", it was done in possibly the worst possible way. They need to rectify that shit and then it'll probably be alright, but we'll see what they do in the next few weeks of patches/if and when they release the roadmap.

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All I said was the current decline was a bit steep. One expects a decline after the launch rush, because usually people are just logged in less, even if still playing every day. Look at the complaints here and on the official forums. There are many people just dropping the game. It's Korean. It's already going to have a hard time finding traction in the West. With AGS at the helm doing everything they can to fuck that up. It's not like I said it was dying. But, if AGS doesn't wise up (lol?) that decline will accelerate, I promise you.

Comparing 200k concurrent in a tiny country like South Korea to all of North America, South America and Europe having 500k is whatever.

Pyros said:

The 200k figure was for the western launch. Obviously it was an underestimation on purpose, as the goal was just to give stuff for free and celebrate the western launch, but they probably expected 400-500k at launch and it did double that.

But yeah ppl are gonna quit, this always happens, doesn't matter how the game is doing, you can't really extrapolate the game doing badly because people are quitting a month after launch. A lot more people will quit in the next month too as they reach T3/get tired of the game. It really kinda doesn't matter in the end, what matters is how many core players they can keep, and how many players come back whenever they release new content and/or catchup mechanics, which no one can tell at this point. As I said it can easily lose another half and still be more than fine, concurent users is a deceptive number for games that have playerbase across the globe(so different primetimes which don't lineup) and ultimately doesn't even matter if there's enough whales to sustain the game and if they sell enough small things to the casual "mostly F2P" players.

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IIRC he said they were hoping to hit 200k concurrent, because that's around what it peaked at in Korea.

Extrapolate the game doing badly? Please tell me where I said that? I've said many times that AGS is doing badly, so bad they could hardly do worse. The game is doing fine and has probably already made AGS more money than New World ever will.

I'm not interested in arguing about inconsequential shit, especially when it's based on shit that I never said, so can we move on? I've been playing this game because I have nothing better to do and honestly it barely exists to me until those dumb asses stop fucking around and release the good classes. And even then, it's just a time-waster until something actually good comes along. I was hoping Project TL would turn out to be a better Lost Ark, but NCSoft fucked that idea right in the ass.

Pyros said:

The you wasn't a you you, but a general you, specifically swayze who started the rambling about the game being on the same trajectory as New World.

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I feel like this game is more P2A(advance) over P2W because there is nothing to win - PVP is equalized. So the problem with the structure of the game is that geting to T3 halts you unless you have alts to feed or money to dump etc etc. Sure you can take a break and go adventuring and island hoping etc, however once youve done it all on one chars youre once again out of things to do to progress unless you spend money, coin, etc.

I'm 1361 and i expect to get 2 ilvl a week or so just due to fail rate and lack of materials. You get the sense of being left behind and no way to catch up to others unless you hit the market or other methods. While i dont feel like im left out, i do feel less motivated to stay online after i get my daily fails out of the way. I'm sure to some players they are just "over it" which explains some peoples feelings on the forums.

swayze22 said:

This is pretty much on the same trajectory as New World with about half the population playing ~1 month after the early peak. Only this was F2P so the numbers were slightly larger. It's almost like people didn't realize this was just a korean grindfest which most people who had played other versions had stated repeatedly

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This continues to be the most retarded take ever.

The game is averaging over 500k concurrent users 1.5 months after release. Both LA and New World launched on the Steam platform, which allows tracking and even provides charts for people who are not number savvy. At this stage, NW saw dips of about 85k concurrent users on at the same time and was draining population. LA is holding steady above 500k for the past week and is not seeing that infamous 'trash tier' dip that NW saw 3 weeks after it came out. Need more easy data to tell how the game is doing? Lost Ark is presently the #2 viewed MMORPG on Twitch at 95k viewers. #3 has 2.7k viewers. The only reason it is not #1 is because WoW is presently doing the race to World First, which even LA players like me are watching. New World recently launched a content update and has 1.1k total viewers, for reference.

MMORPG's, in general, always see a decline after a month. The success of an MMO is in it's general lasting power (e.g. how many users can you get to continue through the low points) and how many people return for the large content updates / expansions and spend money. FFXIV does this rather well, in that people come back for the expansion story and maybe a tier of raiding and unsub. Lost Ark is perfectly ok with you not logging in for a month or two, provided you return to try the new classes / raids when they release every few months and spend some shop cash to unlock a new slot for the aforementioned class and maybe buy an outfit. They're not looking to have you play 24/7 for the next six years -- the whales can do this for them just fine.

Here's an easy counter take to make those that hate the game really cry: Lost Ark is presently the most successful MMORPG to launch in the last decade based upon the numbers of players still playing after a month. Let that sink in. They are making stupid levels of profit; as a result, if you hate the way the game is monetized, you should be speaking out. Wonder why a game like for-all-intents-purposes-Lineage just announced? Not a coincidence.

Once more for the cheap seats: you are allowed to despise LA and think it's a shit tier game. That's a subjective opinion and one where I agree on certain points (fuck releasing Argos in the manner that they did, they're retarded for the class release cadence, and most importantly, someone needs to be shot for the 1340 --) 1370 wall not being factored in and still launching with the content / honing rate that we had). When you start comparing this to the shit tier game that had no one playing after two weeks though, you're living in a separate reality.

Edaw said:

Just have to play more. (Never played before early start - bought $15 pack - Haven't played AH at all. Got 1 yellow map so far.)

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Not really sure you should be partaking in the discussion over the T3 wall when you aren't even in T3 yet, especially by trying to tell folks to 'play more'. Everything that you linked looks like my achievements 3.5 weeks ago. I'm part of the have crowd and it's pretty easy to read Booze's post and see that it's a legitimate concern from someone who is putting in a fuckton of time in the game (dude has 50 islands done and his roster level is ahead of mine). Most of his concerns stem directly from the fact that he started playing late and as a result, he isn't able to advance his character at the rate that I can (which is 100% a legitimate concern).

Signed: someone with almost double your playtime.

Voldeth said:

This continues to be the most retarded take ever.

The game is averaging over 500k concurrent users 1.5 months after release. Both LA and New World launched on the Steam platform, which allows tracking and even provides charts for people who are not number savvy. At this stage, NW saw dips of about 85k concurrent users on at the same time and was draining population. LA is holding steady above 500k for the past week and is not seeing that infamous 'trash tier' dip that NW saw 3 weeks after it came out. Need more easy data to tell how the game is doing? Lost Ark is presently the #2 viewed MMORPG on Twitch at 95k viewers. #3 has 2.7k viewers. The only reason it is not #1 is because WoW is presently doing the race to World First, which even LA players like me are watching. New World recently launched a content update and has 1.1k total viewers, for reference.

MMORPG's, in general, always see a decline after a month. The success of an MMO is in it's general lasting power (e.g. how many users can you get to continue through the low points) and how many people return for the large content updates / expansions and spend money. FFXIV does this rather well, in that people come back for the expansion story and maybe a tier of raiding and unsub. Lost Ark is perfectly ok with you not logging in for a month or two, provided you return to try the new classes / raids when they release every few months and spend some shop cash to unlock a new slot for the aforementioned class and maybe buy an outfit. They're not looking to have you play 24/7 for the next six years -- the whales can do this for them just fine.

Here's an easy counter take to make those that hate the game really cry: Lost Ark is presently the most successful MMORPG to launch in the last decade based upon the numbers of players still playing after a month. Let that sink in. They are making stupid levels of profit; as a result, if you hate the way the game is monetized, you should be speaking out. Wonder why a game like for-all-intents-purposes-Lineage just announced? Not a coincidence.

Once more for the cheap seats: you are allowed to despise LA and think it's a shit tier game. That's a subjective opinion and one where I agree on certain points (fuck releasing Argos in the manner that they did, they're retarded for the class release cadence, and most importantly, someone needs to be shot for the 1340 --) 1370 wall not being factored in and still launching with the content / honing rate that we had). When you start comparing this to the shit tier game that had no one playing after two weeks though, you're living in a separate reality.

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Throne & Liberty (Project TL, NCSofts new MMO) will be their take on Black Desert Online, not Lost Ark. Not sure if their isometric game is still in dev.