The Amazon MMORPG Lost Ark is changing the rules three years after its release. Those who get paid to carry others through the dungeons will now be punished.
What kind of rule change is this? In Amazon’s MMORPG Lost Ark, players face many challenging dungeons and raids. In the past, if someone didn’t have the right gear but still wanted to go through the dungeon, they could simply use one of the popular carry services that would drag their customers through the dungeons without them having to help.
However, this service was rarely free, and a market for boosting characters for gold emerged in the MMORPG. Now Amazon is reacting and wants to punish anyone who promotes these services.
Here you can watch a cinematic trailer for Lost Ark:
Promoters can lose their accounts for months
What measures is Amazon taking? The developers of Lost Ark have determined that carry services make it difficult for new and returning players to find groups that do not insist on being paid to complete older content.
As a first measure against the carry services, the developers are penalizing the advertising of these services. After a transitional period that starts on February 18, 2025, promoting such “buses”, as they are called in the game, will result in a one-day ban. Repeat offenders, however, can be banned for weeks or even months.
To ensure that more experienced players can help new players without payment, the developers are providing event tokens for interaction with accounts that have not logged in for at least 60 days or were created only 60 days ago. Additionally, the item level must not have reached 1670 yet.
Were these services allowed before? Amazon tolerated the “buses” for the last three years. However, using and offering such services always came with a certain degree of personal risk, as Amazon also removed bought gold from the booster accounts. If customers of the booster providers paid them with real-money bought gold, penalties were to be expected.
Anyone who dragged many players through the dungeons could even be banned if they came into possession of too much illegal gold. Selling such services for real money was, on the other hand, punishable from the start and could mean a permanent ban for the players.
The fact that Lost Ark is doing something to ensure that new and returning players have a good time and do not have to pay other players for carry services is likely related to the fact that the Amazon MMORPG is not doing so well anymore. MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz recently noted in his weekly review that only about 1.8% of the player base is active: In 2022, an MMORPG had a historic launch on Steam; at the 3rd anniversary, only 1.8 percent of the players are left
