Lost Ark is dead, long live Lost Ark! Well, it’s not that extreme. Still, the whole friend circle of MeinMMO author Mark Sellner celebrated the MMORPG at launch and played a lot, but only the first part continued. Why is that actually? An attempt at explanation.
The hype was huge: Before the big MMORPG Lost Ark was released in the West on February 11, or February 8 for pre-orders, the hype was simply gigantic. Since the first trailers in 2014, my friends and I were completely overwhelmed with anticipation, finally getting to play this awesome game.
And that’s how our first weeks in Lost Ark looked: We were online constantly, accumulated over 500 play hours in no time, and soaked up everything the MMORPG had to offer. Played various characters, leveled up together and solo, and pushed our guild forward. I was even annoyed that I couldn’t spend more money.
We organized a LAN party at the release and had sweatshirts printed. The “Lost LAN” was a complete success and in the first week after the release we literally did nothing but play Lost Ark. But where has this hype gone today?
Where has the group gone? Initially, we dove into the chaos of Arkesia with about 20 people. Some already noticed at the start that the game wasn’t quite for them. But with about 12 active people, we successfully spent the first weeks after release in Lost Ark on a daily basis.
Looking at my friends list on Steam today, the result is sobering. Of my original group, only one is still playing actively. A handful of people, including myself, still sporadically check in or do daily quests. The others have completely disappeared in the meantime.
This is likely the case in several friend circles when looking at the player numbers. The increasingly negative reviews on Steam are an indicator of this. What’s particularly interesting, though, is that nobody in my group has anything negative to say about the game. None of us really knows why we don’t return to Arkesia.
One reason for this sounds as strange as almost any other to stop playing an MMORPG. Because some of my friends come to an absurd conclusion: too much content. And I can agree with that.
The new Legion Raid Vykas is intended for endgame players:
I no longer have time for Lost Ark
Too much content: This may sound confusing at first, but it surprised several fans in my immediate circle. As soon as you reach level 50 in Lost Ark, the game actually just begins. From then on, the MMORPG overwhelms you with daily tasks, dungeons, grind, bosses, and a variety of islands, quests, and more.
If you don’t organize yourself here, you struggle every day for hours just to manage your daily quests. This was the first point at which our group lost people. Some found the game too grind-heavy, while others didn’t want to deal with the time gates. Especially people who wanted to play Lost Ark only casually and as a “side MMORPG” quickly lost interest here.
“I want to keep playing, but I just don’t have time for Lost Ark right now” is a sentence I heard more than once when I asked my friends why they had stopped playing. The sentence “I haven’t stopped, I just can’t get around to it right now” was also said quite often.
Others are simply waiting for the class they want to play to be available in the West. They also don’t want to invest so much time in a character they won’t play anymore.
The significant time investment seems to be a factor, but true tryhards, especially those from the Lost LAN, shouldn’t be deterred by that. We wanted a lot from the game, so what has happened to us?
Change in game mechanics: Personally, I count myself among those who would say that they haven’t really stopped playing the game. Yet when I check Steam, it has been over two weeks since I last launched my actual favorite MMORPG.
For me, a seemingly small point was decisive in losing my motivation to continue actively playing. This crept into the MMORPG starting from the area of Rohendel. In open-world games, I’m someone who likes to pick up all collectibles during my first visit to avoid coming back. This was great in Lost Ark, with few exceptions, up until Rohendel.
Now, however, the game annoys me by constantly requiring me to complete certain tasks before I can even collect items like Mokoko Seeds. The same MMORPG that had previously forced me to backtrack a maximum of 10 times across 4 continents now does so on the first map of Rohendel more often.
While I had no issues with grinding, leveling gear score, and such, I simply no longer found it enjoyable to explore the world. That’s why I’m now standing somewhere lost, wanting to play further, and then catching myself losing interest again after just a few minutes.
And that’s sad because I haven’t really stopped playing Lost Ark. At least, that’s what I tell myself because I think the MMORPG is simply amazing and would still recommend everyone to try it out.
How about you? Are you still playing Lost Ark or have you also stopped, and if so, why? Are your friends still fully engaged, or are you the last one remaining who wanders lonely through Arkesia? Feel free to let us know in the comments here at MeinMMO, we’re looking forward to the discussion!
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