Our dear friends over at WorldsFactory published an interesting interview for Smilegate’s upcoming Unreal Engine 3-powered hack n slash title, Lost Ark. As Smilegate revealed, it is considering bringing this gorgeous-looking action RPG to the West, though it is currently committed on its Korean release.
As Smilegate told WorldsFactory:
“First, we will be launching in the Korean market. In 2015, we are going to proceed with CBT. We are considering launching Lost Ark in western market, and the date will be finalized after solidifying the service schedule in Korea.”
In addition, Smilegate talked about whether Lost Ark will be a subscription-based or a F2P title:
“When Lost Ark was unveiled in Korea, many users had requested fixed-rate subscription fees. We know what that means. Everyone wants to play games for free. Nevertheless, they asked for subscription fees. It means that users feel doubts about cash policy in free games. They want to be able to pay honestly and play a game worth their money. We think the “pay-to-win” business model should be changed. And we will find reasonable business model with in regards to this matter.”
Last but not least, Smilegate revealed that the game won’t support a fully dynamic real-time weather system. While a feature like that is possible to implement, the team decided to not use it as it thought that it would frustrate a number of gamers.
“In Lost Ark, the weather can be changed by scenario or events, but dynamic weather in real time was not considered. Some may enjoy hunting monsters that only appear at night, or only during rainy days, but this might prove to be simply annoying to others. There are tons of fun things to do besides tinkering with the weather effects, so real-time dynamic weather is currently not implemented.”
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Subscription is even worse than F2P.
Subscription > Korean F2P
spoken like a true pleb.
Thing is, I would never pay $10 a month to play a game, but I could play a F2P game if it’s done property. Korean F2P usually are cancerous P2W, though
Go play your WoW and EVE, pleb.
paying 10/month is not a lot, consider some of those Korean games in Asia has already cost many people tens of thousands, and yet they are still not the not top 10 players. they should just make the game balance, and enjoyable so people will stay and keep invest their time. Make money off from cosmetic items, that may allow cosmetic upgrade of skill shots and etc, or such as pet system that allow pets to do certain task that will speed up the game play yet without making one with pet more powerful. I have only spent about 30 on DN, wich is p2w, but I spent almost 100 on LOL complete free to play and considerably balanced. Unbalanced part are also fun as you can just buy that champ free and be OP for a short amount of time.
$10 a month is a lot when you consider that you could pay $60 and play a game for years for a Pay-Once-Model…
Wow isn’t P2Win, but it does currently suck. Lol
The only true way is Pay-Only-Once like most games.
It is MMO. Not Action RPG.
It’s more accurately, an “Action Based MMORPG.”
Damn, I do not play games regularly enough to pay for a subscription. I would just rather pay my 60bux and be done with it. That said, this looks badass!!!
I like the payment style of GW2, hope they do the same.
I really do hate the Subscription Based business model. It means that if you get burned out on a game after 6 months, then you have used all that money for nothing only to have to pay more if you ever feel interested again. Usually Free to Play goes terribly wrong with MMORPGs though, so rather than both of these I would like the alternative. Pay $60 once, and get the game. I would also be fine with a Cosmetic Marketing System, and if they warrant it, paid expansions. But for the base game, I would rather pay once rather than have another Monthly Bill.