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MMO and fashion simulator Lost Ark was released in English last month, but it's been out in Korea for years. Only some of what's been added to the original version over the course of its life was brought over at launch. More is coming, beginning with an update due some time this month, as announced on the official site.
The first thing confirmed for the March update is more storyline, with a story episode called Kadan that covers the Isteri and Illusion Bamboo Islands. Continuing from where the current main quest leaves off, it sees you searching for the first Guardian slayer and the last of the lost arks. To start the new quests you'll need to have finished the continent of Feiton and the quests Let There Be Light on Yorn, Start of Our Story on Whispering Islet, and End of the Trials on Illusion Bamboo Island. It's recommended for characters who are at item level 1,100.
Also coming is a new endgame activity called Abyss Raids. Like the existing Guardian Raids, these are Monster Hunter-inspired boss hunts where you have a time limit to defeat a single gigantic guardian, only where Guardian Raids are designed for 1–4 players, Abyss Raids are specifically for groups of eight. The guardian you're hunting will power up through three phases, with different mechanics for each, and different rewards for each phase as well. The first Abyss Raid will be against a guardian called Argos.
The announcement notes these two additions aren't all that will be coming in the update, and we should "stay tuned for the full release notes, including details on additional changes and bug fixes." A date for the update, and the downtime that will come with it, will apparently be following soon.
A separate announcement on Lost Ark's launch issues elaborates on upcoming tweaks in the next weekly update. The difficulty of endgame content is being lowered, with several tier 1 and tier 2 Guardian Raids and Abyss Dungeons being toned down. Currently, guardians have a ridiculous amount of hit points and taking them down is a time-consuming chore—especially for something that's designed to be a repeatable daily task—so I'd be happy for that to get nerfed.
Additionally, the post addresses the problem with gold sellers and bots that Lost Ark's been having. "We are constantly adjusting tools," it says, "improving chat filters, and acting on reports to ban gold sellers and bots from the game at a rapid rate. In fact, spammers last an average of less than 10 minutes in-game before getting banned." To limit them even further, characters under level 30 won't be able to use area chat, though they'll still have access to group chat and so on.
Bots have become pretty common in Lost Ark's quest hubs. Rows of identical-looking berserkers and sorceresses with names that look like the result of someone falling asleep on their keyboard can be seen clumping together around questgivers then buzzing off at lightning speed. The post notes that player reports help the support team get rid of bots and spammers, and ctrl-clicking on a player name in chat lets you bring up the menu to report them.
