After attracting over 500,000 concurrent users yesterday for the launch of head start, Lost Ark (our review here) now has two new servers to help add capacity. With robust demand for its paid-for head start, and having some of the usual launch queue issues that many new MMOs face, there should be a little more access for those looking to join in. Anyone who wants to play can buy a pack to get access before Friday, so demand may still increase.
The head start is open to those that have purchased any tier of Founder’s Pack, so the numbers are probably just a peek at what to expect for the official full launch coming on Friday. For now, though, Amazon has decided to open one new server, Karmine, for NA East and another, Akkan, for NA West. The official announcement of new servers also comes with the promise to monitor the situation.
It’s likely that Amazon is also treading a bit cautiously with some lessons learned from the launch of its own MMO, New World. The initial server queues and high demand at launch and early on led to the company expanding server capacity by many new servers, something that they later had to adjust by way of extensive server merges. This process is still underway.
With Lost Ark, however, it seems that moving a bit more cautiously is the way to go for now. Of course, when Friday comes the weekend is probably going to see extensive queues once the fully free to play access comes. This will let us know just how things are going, but also get a chance to see just how Amazon as publisher will respond this time.
For those already able to play, there’s a list of known issues for the game that is worth a look. Many of them are for graphics, UI, and otherwise more of a quality of life nature. Things like the drop down in the friends list not working if you use a controller, and users being shown as “Unknown Player” when using voice chat. Some of the impacted functions are also to accessibility, such as Speak to Text malfunctioning.
You can take a look at the known issues list for Lost Ark over here.
