Technology

Lost Ark Europe Servers Continue Struggling with Capacity

Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG have introduced the new EU West data center amidst server problems in EU Central. However, the central data center is still experiencing severe server issues.

Lost Ark is still growing more popular even a few weeks after its official launch. The game has broken Steam records as it vastly outpaced DOTA 2, PUBG, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as the most played game on the Steam platform. Unfortunately, like any other new hit game, the Korean ARPG is experiencing a lot of major and minor problems that might affect its player base in the long run. Server congestion and long queue times have been plaguing players with Lost Ark accounts since the very beginning. However, it seems that adventurers from EU data centers have it worse. 

Server Congestion in the EU 

Though other data centers are experiencing intermittent server issues, the EU has been plagued by server congestion. Many players have reported being stuck in the queue for long periods of time and even gamers who get through the line experience heavy lag. While the long queues see players sit and wait in line for at least two to three hours, server lags make the game almost unplayable preventing gamers from earning Lost Ark gold.

On top of all the waiting and lag, matchmaking is also close to non-existent as thousands of EU players have reported not being able to group up with other people for dungeon instances. This means that players are unable to access key features such as Chaos Dungeons, Abyss Raids, Guardian Raids, Cubes, Legion Instances, and other world events. These features are the main sources of progression materials, and not being able to access or play them means that the game is barely playable or functional.

EU players are very frustrated that while most NA players do not have any major issues with the game, adventurers from the EU Center data center are still experiencing severe server problems. Despite the developers opening a second data center for the European region, EU West is not enough to alleviate the problems that the central servers are experiencing. 

EU West Now Available

Amazon and Smilegate’s answer to the increasing server problems is to open up a new data center called EU West. This new region was added to the game just five days after the release when devs saw the severity of the server problems. The new data center now hosts 20% of the total population of adventurers from Europe and is slowly growing. Though the new region was able to alleviate some of the stress from the Central region, server problems are still rampant.

Even with the new data center, players are still asking for additional servers in EU central since the majority of the characters have already started in that region. Unfortunately, Amazon Games have stated that adding more servers is not possible or not an option at the moment due to the complexity of the systems that need to work together. The gaming studio is hoping that the server issues will eventually resolve themselves with the introduction of EU West.

No Character or Data Transfers for the Moment

Many adventurers are reluctant to move to a new data center since many gamers have already progressed far in the game. Moving to EU West without any sort of character transfer means that players must start from the very beginning once again. Adventurers are not willing to sit through over 10 hours of main questlines just to gain access to features such as Chaos Dungeon, Guardian Raids, and Abyss Raids. 

Another reason why players are unwilling to leave EU Central is that some of them have already redeemed packs or bundles on that server. Many gamers have bought the game’s Founder Packs and Vanquisher pack, and they have already redeemed the rewards of those bundles on their current servers. Without any data transfers available, players will have to leave items or rewards they got from the bundle in the Central region if they migrate to EU West. 

Unfortunately, Amazon Gaming Studio and Smilegate stated that data transfers will not be available to Western regions anytime soon. This specific feature has just been released in the original KR server and involved a very tedious process as far as the back-end. Since Lost Ark has just been released for Western regions, the game’s systems are not yet ready or optimal for character transfers. 

Another sad news for EU players is that cross-regional functionality is not on the table. Some players are hoping to be able to access or play in other regions without migrating from their home server. Unfortunately, this presents another complex data integration on the developers’ part who are tackling multiple problems while they roll out relevant updates for the game. It may be sad for some players, but EU Central players should consider starting over in EU West so that they can properly enjoy the game. 

With the release of the new data center, Amazon Games and Smilegate hope that the server issue will eventually resolve itself. Hopefully, the gaming studios will be able to figure out compensations for players who choose to migrate from EU Central to EU West. As the game continuously grows in popularity, more gamers are expected to try out their hand at farming Lost Ark gold. With luck, the new data center should be able to smoothen things out for the EU region.

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