Update: Lost Ark's Steam download issue looks to have largely been resolved, but now players are experiencing server queues instead. The official Lost Ark Twitter account stated that it has confirmed with Valve that the download issue is improving, though it will continue to monitor the situation.
Players hoping to play on launch day are now reporting lengthy server queues. The Lost Ark Twitter stated players «may experience queue times on some servers as they begin to fill up,» but noted that there should be servers in each region without queues that players can choose to play on instead. It should be noted, however, that Lost Ark requires players to be on the same server to play together, so choosing a low population server just to skip the queue when a friend may be playing on another server might not be a great idea.
Original Story: Lost Ark's head start period is supposed to be live now, but as pointed out by both players and the official Lost Ark Twitter account, that's not exactly the case.
Players who have purchased one of the game's Founder's Packs on Steam are supposed to get a three-day head start ahead of the game's official, free-to-play launch on February 11. But it seems there's currently an issue with being able to download the game, with users getting «connection time out» errors. GameSpot has independently confirmed the issue, which seems to occur even if you've pre-installed the game prior to the head start launch.
Thank you for the reports regarding game downloads timing on Steam. Steam is aware of it and is actively looking into the issue and we will update players as soon as we have additional information.
The official Lost Ark Twitter has confirmed the issue and is working with Steam to resolve
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