Today marks the start of the new MMORPG Lost Ark. At least the closed beta. For many, this is the first chance to play the game. Our author Mark has already spent 12 hours in the beta and shares his experiences.
What can you play? Today, on November 4th, at 5 PM, the closed beta for the new MMORPG Lost Ark kicks off. Anyone who pre-ordered the game, received a Twitch drop, or won in one of the giveaways can participate.
Besides the very limited alpha in June, this is probably the first opportunity for most fans to get a taste of their new favorite game. Even if you couldn’t snag a key in advance, getting access through the Twitch drops will be very easy once the beta starts.
Playable for a week is a beta build of Lost Ark. For the first time, you’ll also get a look at the cash shop of the EU version. This is particularly important, as the game has repeatedly faced Pay2Win accusations.
Amazon announced that it will completely revamp the cash shop for the western version. Every player will also receive a sizable amount of real currency to play around with in the shop.
What could we play? As one of the few lucky ones, our author Mark was able to play this beta build. The cash shop was still disabled in our version, but the versions were otherwise identical.
Everything up to level 55 was available, in multiple languages and in its full glory. MeinMMO author Mark reports on the first 12 hours in a game he has been looking forward to for 7 years.
The first 60 minutes get a lot right but also something quite wrong
How does the game start? At the start of Lost Ark, you’ll find yourself in the character selection. Here you can look at the 5 base classes of the game and watch short preview videos for the important sub-classes.
This is important since, thanks to the new prologue, you never actually play as a base class. Choosing a base class therefore feels somewhat obsolete after these 60 minutes, but more on that later.
You select your base class and then a short video tells you the story behind your class and why you do what you do. This video is different for each class.
Directly after the video, you land on a golden bridge at the edge of the world, where an angelic being asks you to choose your sub-class. Here, you also have the opportunity to try out all sub-classes beforehand and test them.
After that, you go through a portal, and the actual prologue of the game starts. On a ship, with several rascals and a priest, on the way to the island of Trua.
Is the prologue worth it? Attentive fans will notice that they can skip the prologue immediately in the menu or even at the top left. If you’ve played an MMORPG or a game with an isometric perspective before, you won’t really learn anything new here.
However, the prologue does a great job of setting up the story of Lost Ark. If you skip the prologue, you’ll soon encounter a villain in the main story who you neither know who he is nor what he wants.
This may have its appeal, but the approximately 30-minute prologue gives the story a narrative thread and characterizes the villain with a motive. This makes the main story of the game much more interesting right from the start and is recommended for every story fan.
What does it do wrong? What the prologue doesn’t provide is a good insight into the game. It’s immediately clear which characters are involved, as the others remain completely characterless.
Additionally, the staging of the island of Trua is very colorful. While this fits with the first city of Prideholm, which you visit right after, the general tone of Lost Ark is for a long time a darker one.
Moreover, there is far too little fighting during the prologue. The action-packed battles and the fast-paced, excellent combat system are hardly utilized here. Instead, mechanics are explained and a story is introduced.
So the prologue provides a great and cohesive introduction to the story and gives the first location you visit a much greater significance. You immediately understand what’s important.
What it doesn’t deliver is a good insight into what to expect in Lost Ark generally. If you’re not interested in the story and would rather jump right into the action, you can skip it.
After the prologue, there’s another one
What happens in the first 60 minutes? After leaving the island of Trua, you save the priest Armel from dangerous bandits. It’s immediately clear that Armel must play a central role in the story of Lost Ark.
After that, you travel with him to the village of Prideholm, as he coincidentally seeks the same thing as you. What follows is about 30 minutes full of tutorial quests that involve “Talk to X” and “Bring me Y”.
You learn the various functions of the NPCs and buildings and get shown mechanics, but it just doesn’t seem to pick up speed.
What is good? The only noteworthy side quest is the one that explains how companions work. You should help a little girl pick up things. To do so, you open a jar that endlessly spits out many items.
To pick them up, you hammer the G key about 50 times, which is used to collect items. Then another NPC informs you how foolish it is for the little girl not to use a companion.
You acquire a companion, and the little girl asks you again to collect the items for her. This time, your companion, who has an auto-loot function, takes care of it.
The girl thanks you for simplifying her task, and we as players clearly feel the significant relief that companions provide. It actually feels really good. And you even get to keep the cute rabbit companion.
Good things come to those who wait
Why you must endure the beginning: Lost Ark takes a long time to really pick up speed. Especially the first area around Prideholm offers almost none of what the MMORPG excels at.
Because you start directly at level 10 and never got to play your base class, you receive your first real character progression when you learn your first new skill at level 14. And that takes a while.
Side quests in Lost Ark give hardly any experience and are incredibly generic tasks, especially in the beginning. Rarely does a side quest ask me for more than 10 dead enemies or 5 picked flowers.
If you want to get past this slow start quickly, you should really only take on the main quests. However, this feels wrong to me, as someone who likes to complete everything. So I push through the side quests and the start area.
In this video, you can see gameplay from the first dungeon:
When does it get good? It only gets exciting when the game lets me into the first dungeon. Here, Lost Ark shows its strengths for the first time. It feels fantastic to rush through entire armies of enemies.
Even in the first dungeon, various bosses greet me with different move sets. Lost Ark makes it clear right from the start that you can’t simply lean back and enjoy the action.
I quickly realize that even in the first of all dungeons, I can easily die if I’m not careful, dodge, and combine my skills sensibly. This is not necessarily demanding, but far from easy. And that is fantastic.
From level 25, the game really starts
Why continue? If you’re still bored after the first dungeon, I can only say: Hang in there. From the salt desert of Yurai and the ruins of the city of Morai, the game shows its muscles.
The Morai ruins deeply impressed me in terms of gameplay and design, and it only gets better from there.
The peak of the game’s beginning occurs with the conquest of the first “capital”. This happens as part of the main story, which we won’t spoil here, around level 25.
This battle is staged in an epic and grand manner like I’ve never seen in an isometric game before. During half of the battles, I was busy picking my jaw up off the ground.
The story also reaches a narrative high point, making me briefly think I had experienced the finale. I wouldn’t have been sad, because up to this point, the story is really good.
But I was mistaken. With a big plot twist and this truly breathtaking battle, the story and the game really begin.
What comes next? The world of Lost Ark will become much more open from this point on. Jobs, professions, a ship of your own, and islands will gradually be introduced. You could say the beginning of the game takes about 10 hours, and the tutorial only ends at level 25.
It’s not boring until then; on the contrary. At the very least, after about three hours in Yurai, the game has captured me. Exciting dungeons, world bosses, events, and grand action battles.
It feels like Lost Ark is leading you by the nose until level 25. You think you’ve been playing a really good game, only for the game to show you everything it can do. And I am very much looking forward to that.
Conclusion on the first 12 hours of Lost Ark
After spending some time in the new MMORPG, it quickly becomes clear that it offers much more than I have seen from the game so far. I started several characters, all of which felt completely different, and that is great.
I decided on a Deathblade, which I played until level 34, and even then, I still felt like the game was just getting started. But you have to be able to cope with that feeling.
While it motivates me to see and explore everything, it bothers others to be stuck at the very beginning after over 10 hours. Lost Ark has a slow start and takes a long time to showcase its strengths. However, in my opinion, it is worth it because you’re in for a really strong game.
Mark Sellner
MMORPG author at MeinMMO
What are your thoughts on the MMORPG? Feel free to leave a comment under this post if you’ve had a chance to play a bit. Your opinions interest me greatly!
Not sure what you should play in Lost Ark? These are the 5 best classes for beginners.
