With the big February update, Lost Ark celebrates its one-year anniversary in the West. In line with this, Amazon delivered the new continent Rowen, which was meant to be the highlight of the first year. A survey on reddit now shows that it is not well received by the fans.
What kind of continent is this? Since the release of Lost Ark in the West on February 8, 2022, the world we currently play in has been almost complete. Only the continent South Vern was added last April and advanced the story. After that, only other new content like raids and classes have been added to the game.
Accordingly, the anticipation for the new continent Rowen, which came into the game on February 8, 2023, for the birthday of Lost Ark, was huge. Here, you follow the story of the free city of Eliyaback and the four factions that reside there.
What does Rowen do well? Great praise was given for the approximately 3-hour story of Rowen. This raises the narrative standard of the story significantly. Additionally, it is noticeably bloodier than the previous story segments of Lost Ark.
It is often said that the story is becoming more mature, which is generally well received. The scope of Rowen, with a total of 3 new large maps and several side quests, is also well regarded. Not too much, but also not too little.
New quests were also brought by the Witcher event in Lost Ark:
The uniqueness of Rowen becomes its downfall
What problem does Rowen have? We don’t want to spoil anything here, but once you have completed the main quest of the continent, you will have to choose one of two factions. Once you have done that, you will be PvP-flagged across the entire continent.
This means that outside of safe zones, such as teleporters and cities, any player from the other faction can attack and kill you. This makes even simple gathering tasks on the continent a torture for many fans.
Because while it is already annoying on other continents that there are gathering items for only one player, but several are on site, others not only grab the items from you this time but also take you down.
Faction rank causes additional frustration: Even if you have no desire for PvP and are just a player who enjoys collecting all items, you will have to deal with other players. Because two of the items you need to complete the adventure folio of Rowen depend on your faction rank.
For participating in PvP events, kills of other players, and a small selection of weekly quests, you gain faction experience to level up your rank. Here you can buy one of the needed items only with rank 3, the other even only with rank 7.
To reach rank 7, you need 19,500 faction experience. However, for a single kill, you only receive 3. In the worst case, you will have to defeat 6,500 players just to complete the gathering tasks. Something that is not well received in the community.
Reddit survey shows: 80% of people do not want to play Rowen
How are the fans reacting now? The fact that Rowen is not particularly well received by the fans became apparent quickly in the in-game chat and in various reddit threads. Now, however, one user has even started a survey.
He wanted to know from people if they would continue to play Rowen after claiming all the rewards. So just for fun, because they like the continent or the PvP events and enjoy being on Rowen.
Currently, about 2,700 participants have taken this survey on reddit and the result is clear. 2,100 of them responded clearly with “No” and another 264 with a concerning “I hate Rowen, but I still play it”.
Only 302 people responded with “Yes”, which does not bode well for the longevity of Rowen.
What do the players say? Even in the comments under the survey, there are only a few positive voices. We would like to share some with you so that you can get an impression of the mood (via reddit):
- enigT writes: “I play Hermut [the area boss in Rowen] until Elgacia comes, so yes.”
- tiatafyfnf says: “I stopped playing Rowen after the wolf mask. Maybe I just won’t bother with all of this.”
- Kevadu tells the survey creator: “Bold of you to assume that I will play Rowen long enough to collect all rewards.”
- IDareKI writes: “Definitely not. All PvP content is called a ‘failed experiment’ in Korea and there’s a reason for that.”
- IndependentCake says: “I would even pay to never have to go there again. The trolls who just want to ruin your day are unbearable.”
What do you personally think of Rowen? Have you already played the continent? Feel free to tell us in the comments here at MeinMMO. Our author Mark Sellner has now really gotten into Lost Ark after one year.
