Lost Ark will be launched on November 7th, new information and Q&A from Media Day

So it is finally time, Lost Ark will be launching after all these years, the wait is over.

Today on September 17th the Media Day was held in Seoul, Korea. Smilegate showed off their plans for the future of Lost Ark, aswell as the updates made for the Open Beta version of the game.

Lost Ark was developed since 2011, it took 7 years to get the game to the current state with 200 staff members and over 88 million dollars (~100 billion won) invested into it. Even though the main focus of online gaming is mobile phones now, Smilegate developed the PC MMORPG – Lost Ark.

The main points of the event were covered and translated by /u/meldas, huge shoutout for his fast translation!

Changes planned for Open Beta

• We have been experimenting with ways to make skills feel more impactful. Will be reintroducing blood effects.

• Skills are being tweaked to clearly separate from eachother:

  • much shorter CD skills that can be spammed

  • longer CD skills that are situational

• Tripod has been tweaked so that each tier in the tripod feels more like a chain of effects rather than each tier feeling like its own bonus

• Better AI, new patterns, changes to content where players had no other option than to just circle tank

• Identity skills : every class has received balance changes or overhauls to identity skills to better fit the class style

• PVE/PVP balance separation. Skill damage adjustments/CC duration etc are different for PVE and PVP

• Ways to increase movement speed in town, such as mounting in town (this was a request by players)

• Item set effects to add depth to farming

• Balance chaos dungeon rewards. Chaos dungeon rewards were deemed too overbalanced since it has unlimited entry

• Field Boss / Secret Dungeon rewards are now going to be based on contribution

• Improved Content Guide to help players in-game

• Skip prologue/cutscene buttons

Updates in official release will be in the following order

• Seasonal updates:

  • will be like a brand new expansion, completely overhauling endgame content meta

• Episodes:

  • New story, new NPCs, new regions

  • New activities and collectibles

• Middle Updates:

  • Endgame update : higher tier raids, dungeons, gear

Continued Visual upgrades

• They will be updating visuals constantly even after OBT starts
• Optimization is important too

Housing System Update

• Expedition Island System: You can build your own island, instead of just a house (mobile game land building style)

• Invite NPCs with high amity, dress them

• You can enjoy various social content with other users such as: crafting, cooking and trading

Silmael Battlefield

• Able to queue up as solo, small group or large-scale guild

• Mostly PvP zone, but it has PvE related areas for people who do not like PvP

Epic Raids 

• New raids that require a large number of people

• Map interaction mechanics, both movement and weapon devices, more cooperation needed

• A higher difficulty challenge

Roguelike mode

• It’s a challenge gamemode, where you will need to start from scratch if you die, however several rewards can only be obtained through the rogue-rank mode

• You have limited resources
• It is a somewhat evil challenge

Class updates

• New classes will be added after OBT launch

• Currently 4 new classes are in development for OBT(1 ‘main/tree’ class, 3 sub class)
• Additionally, they are working on different new types of classes too

Continent / Island updates

• Lots of new islands are currently in development

• New region will be included

• Existing regions will have more story and content such as side quests

Business model and Cash Shop

• Inventory will be offered to everyone, but storage expansion will cost money

• Some gear will directly/indirectly (not specified) be acquired faster for paying players (I think this is referring to the dungeon entries)

• Highest tier gear(Best in slot) cannot be obtained any faster by spending money

• Increased Dungeon entries

• Four main categories in Cash Shop:
  • Appearance: Costumes/Skins, Mounts, Character Appearance Change Ticket, etc..
  • Decoration: Expedition Island(Housing) related items, Character Selection Screen Background, etc..

  • Convenience: Life tools, Pets, Storage Expansion, Time Reduction, Feather of Resurrection, etc..

  • Misc: Reduced crafting times, Quest related items, etc..

Finally, Lost Ark will launch into OPEN BETA on November 7th, 2018! 

There is also a new CG trailer for you to watch..

[EVENT] Pre-registration rewards

From: 2018/09/17 – 2018/11/05 23:59 KST

You can pre-register for open beta and secure a few rewards for yourself including:

• An exclusive Title: “Prepared Person”
• Art Deco Workshop Goggles (Costume)
• A special OBT celebration card: Marie
  

To pre-register, go here and follow the steps. Rewards are guaranteed, will be delivered between Nov 8th – Nov 14th. Requires a korean phone number.

[EVENT] Free Crystals(cash shop currency) to anyone sharing the news
All you have to do is go to the promo page and share the official website on facebook/twitter after authenticating your account.
This will earn you:

• 100 Crystals (Premium currency)

Some community related questions:

Will older CBT accounts or current accounts from reseller sites work on Open Beta?
Yeah, they should be fine unless Smilegate changes STOVE with something different or asks for a re-verification. If you want to secure an account for yourself right now, I’d say wait a bit longer just to be sure.

Can I play from NA/EU/Other parts of the world outside Korea?
Yes, you can play with VPNs from anywhere. The ping is usually around 200-300ms, but it’s fine because Lost Ark has a great netcode. I will post a guide on this also.

Will you be updating the website with more information regarding classes / items / systems?
Yes, I’m planning to post guides regularly up until OBT to prepare everyone for the big launch. I will also be updating the Wiki part of the website so most of you will know how to use the game’s systems when it launches and no english patch is available yet.

The full 1 hour long conference can be watched here in korean:

Source(s): Reddit, INVEN, YouTube, ThisisGame