If you look at the Steam stats, you may have noticed that Lost Ark has lost a lot of players. But the reason is not that free-to-play is losing popularity. Rather, the developers have cracked down and blocked tons of bots. There should now be significantly fewer scammers in Arkesia.
A free-to-play action role-playing game with an in-game shop where you can exchange real money for game currency: It’s no wonder that Lost Ark is not only extremely popular with players. There are also lots of bots in the world of Arkesia. Of course, they do not pursue noble intentions, rather they want to deceive you and only exist to fill the purses of their creators.
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Publisher Amazon Games and developer Smilegate are also aware of this. That’s why they cracked down on January and banned tons of bot accounts. The statement in the official forum states that the sharp drop in player numbers is due to the measures. A “considerable number” of bot accounts have been banned.
The developers also state that the blocking should have a positive effect on gameplay. And in-game trading will also change: “The experiences on the marketplace and in the auction house will improve, the delays in densely populated areas will decrease and there will be fewer bots in the game.”
Despite the success, it’s not done yet: “In the coming months, we will continue to conduct large-scale bot banning waves and roll out new methods to identify and combat bots on a large scale. We will update you on the deployment and results of these Keep track of ban waves as they roll out.”
So you can roam through Arkesia as carefree as possible. Not a bad time, after all, a special crossover event is about to start. In this, characters from The Witcher find their way into Lost Ark.
Lost Ark is running a Witcher crossover event from January 18th to February 22nd, and the trailer gives you a taste of what’s to come.
