Lost Ark’s first year saw “growing pains,” but Amazon has big plans

pcgamesn.com:

It’s been just over a year since Lost Ark launched worldwide, and the Korean-developed game has proven itself as one of the best new MMOs on PC despite a series of teething issues including server troubles and waves of bot accounts. As the second year kicks off, PCGamesN talks to Soomin Park, franchise leader at publisher Amazon Games, about what the team has learned, its future plans, and closing the gap between Lost Ark’s regional versions.

PCGamesN: After one year of the worldwide release, how does the team feel about the differences between the Korean and worldwide versions over the first year? Have there been any notable changes you were forced to make, or areas where you felt the worldwide release saw benefit from things you learned on the Korean release?

Soomin Park: After the first year of release in the West, we feel great about the differences between the Korean and Western versions of the game. Our policy is to stay as close as possible to the source material for Lost Ark, unless we feel there’s a benefit to adjusting something for the Western audience.

Most of what we’ve changed, aside from localizing text, is game systems where we felt an adjustment would make them feel more comfortable to Western audiences and what they expect from a free-to-play action MMO. That means minor adjustments to monetisation aspects and some game mechanics that we feel help Western players adjust to a game like Lost Ark.

I think the Western release benefited greatly in general from the Korean version of Lost Ark in how much polish Smilegate put into the game’s content before it comes to our region. Lost Ark players in the West were able to benefit from years of refinement and improvement of content and balance by the time those