Somehow half the gaming world seems to be in "Lost Ark" fever. So the game must have something to offer. It's free-to-play, so try it out straight away! And it captivated me. Could it be because I have a penchant for MMORPGs one way or another?
A dream for fashionistas
It follows the usual pattern: create character, select class, etc. Even here I was a little overwhelmed by the visuals in the game. To my eyes, the characters look extremely cheesy. And the clothes too! I chose a female character and wondered whether I had landed in a Japanese cartoon series for adults. The pants I was allowed to wear could at best be described as knickers. During the course of the game, I was also allowed to wear a leg dress, which at least covered one of my legs. The rest of the fabric was invested in outerwear. But not to cover the front of my torso, of course. No, there are sweeping sleeves, wings, cape-like things... all sorts of things fluttering around the back or sides of my torso. However, it doesn't matter what new equipment I find ingame, everything is perfectly color-coordinated. For fashionistas definitely a Dream.
After the initial shock has passed, the game finally starts. No surprises here either: starting area, quests in which you have to kill, collect and run back and forth. So far, everything as usual. What I find good: You don't run pointlessly from the quest giver to the other side of the area and then have to go back again, but you accept the quest and the fulfillment then usually goes in the direction you have to go anyway to get to the next quest. You then hand in the quest a little further on, so that you automatically walk through the whole area in the direction in which the next area is waiting. In this way, you wander through different regions, are sent to new continents and can discover all kinds of things.
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The somewhat different hack and slay
So what's different? There is an adventure folder. This is a kind of book in which the progress of the respective continent is saved. In addition to the main quest, there are two special side quests (and plenty of others, but they are not saved in the tome), hidden storiesspecial recipes, area bosses, collectible items, viewpoints and mokokos that you can search for and collect. This means that hunters and collectors of achievements can get their money's worth from the very first minute of the game. There are gradual rewards for achieving the tome progress. There are also various NPCs with whom you can build up relationships. Through gestures, gifts or simple conversations. Of course, there are rewards for reaching the various relationship levels. Some of them are simply quite nice, others are needed for recipes, for example.
While you move through the Continents there are also dungeons for the low level area, which you have to tackle alone or with a maximum of four players. You also learn how to mine ore, chop trees, collect plants, fish and dig up relics before you reach max level. At level 50, you have a huge selection of activities to choose from. Raids, dungeons, arenas, PVP, chaos dungeons, seafaring, many small islands on which there are
nice quest lines or special events and much more. You can upgrade your equipment by collecting card sets or making engravings, for example.
What you need for traveling
There are a variety of rewards that can be exchanged for improvements or simply fun things at various merchants. There are companions, mounts and costumes. In other words, everything an MMORPG character needs. And there are effects. Lots of them. When you're traveling in a group, it can happen that you're overwhelmed by the animations of Spellbullets, bombs, etc., you can hardly see anything other than colorful lights. If, like me, you don't take the whole thing too seriously, it's more entertaining than annoying. Especially as I opted for a bard who also triggers her spells with her harp. In other words, she produces more or less pretty sounds with every keystroke. The only thing that took some getting used to was the controls. You don't move around with WASD, but with a click of the mouse. As with Diablo z. B. is not completely unknown and in no way takes away from the fun of the game. However, the game is a little less fun due to the many bots. Sometimes they are quite helpful.
If you're in a difficult situation and are being attacked by lots of enemies, it can be nice to have two characters stuck in each other, with names as if their heads have fallen onto the keyboard, to help you. But basically it's rather annoying when they kill all the enemies directly in front of you or are so close to the quest giver that you can only click on them after the umpteenth attempt. The developers are working on this. The latest update on this topic was released in mid-May.
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Oh, I forgot! You get your own fortress. Here you can research potions and new ships, among other things, and produce. Unfortunately, I can't say any more about this. I haven't dealt with this topic before. Sorry.
Conclusion: After just over 100 hours of play, I still feel like I've only explored a fraction of the possibilities. I'm sticking with it and having fun!