In Lost Ark you can no longer play in German since the last patch. The developers justify the removal by saying that they want to prevent confusion.
What have the developers removed? With the last patch of Lost Ark, the developers removed the German and French languages from the game. Previously, players could choose between English, German, and French as European languages.
However, along with the translations, the corresponding keyboard layouts were also removed. For players with a German keyboard, this means that pressing the Z key now always sends a Y. Instead of QWERTZ (German) and AZERTY (French), Lost Ark now only uses the English QWERTY layout. The developers are trying to explain this move with game mechanics.
Writing Test as Justification for the Removal
Why were the languages removed? According to the developers, the other languages and keyboard layouts were removed because there were issues with bosses in the MMORPG. Some boss opponents in Lost Ark require players to quickly press the right keys on their keyboard as a Quick-Time Event. An example of this is the boss Vykas (Gate 3).
In the past, there were apparently recurring issues with such bosses because the sequences are designed for the English keyboard and can therefore be more difficult or problematic on other keyboards. For instance, players pressed the Z key but should have pressed the Y key and vice versa. The developers want to eliminate these mistakes by switching to a uniform layout.
The developers say on X.com:
The intent behind our change was to avoid confusion among players and maintain the consistency of the main guides and mechanics in the game. Although our intent was made in good faith, we will discuss what options we can take in the future. At this time, we will not immediately repair or reintroduce AZERTY and QWERTZ. We will provide an update on the situation at a later date after further discussion.
What about other layouts? While the developers have removed the two languages along with keyboard layouts, they are keeping other keyboard layouts. Players can still use English keyboard layouts like the Colemak keyboard layout (QWFPGJ) (via Wikipedia) and the Dvorak layout (“<>PYF) (via Wikipedia) is also expected to continue being officially supported.
The developers do not explain in their post how this relates to the removal of the European layouts. On PlayLostArk.com it states:
- “French and German language support has been removed.
- AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboard layouts have been removed (DVORAK and COLEMAK will still be supported)”
Whether there were more reasons for the removal of the keyboard layouts or if the game functions better with the other, officially still supported layouts remains open.
Whether the developers will reimplement the original layouts is currently uncertain. While the standardization of the output aims to prevent confusion, the question arises whether enforced uniformity – for example, sending a “Y” instead of a “Z” – is actually beneficial. How things will proceed with Amazon Games has been analyzed by MeinMMO expert Karsten Scholz: Amazon has wanted to be a big player in games for 10 years, now it has to rely on Lord of the Rings
