raiders of the lost ark

HGR’s been hyping up Lost Ark, a Diablo-esque Korean MMO that launched last Friday. It’s notoriously grindy: in postgame, it’s standard practice to do all your weeklies on your main (which takes many hours), and then do the same weeklies on multiple alts and funnel all the benefits to your main.

I have zero interest in that kind of grinding. But it’s free-to-play, and I liked Diablo, so I figured I might as well check out the main questline. So now I’m Zwynberk the Artillerist. (Deadeye was tempting—certainly the most aesthetic choice—but the weapon swapping and close-range style seemed tough to get a handle on.)

I’m enjoying it so far; it’s very chill, running around doing quests and shooting stuff. It’s a good mindless way to unwind. Everything is nicely streamlined. Sidequests are short, turn-in locations are conveniently placed in the next place you have to go anyway, waypoints are plentiful, and you get a mount before leaving the first town. You can talk to people on horseback! The plot is generic folderol about humans vs. demons (expected), but the aesthetics are good and there are some really nice setpieces (better than expected).

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HGR’s commentary on Lost Ark:

“Holy shit, I can move out of this aoe indicator after it disappears and not get hit. Game of the year.”

and:

“We’re destroying Azmodan’s siege weapons. In 2022. Fuck my ass”

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Meanwhile, Kan was talking about his adventures doing Pandemonium Savage in party finder with pubs. He just cleared P4S part 2.

numbers said, “Wait what, I thought you had a static for Eden, did that fall apart?”

Kan said, “Yeah, they replaced me for some old buddies of theirs, which was not very fun. Big sad. I had to PF this whole tier.”

“Aw man, that sucks, I’m sorry,” said numbers. “Feel bad about replacing you here since the impetus was you already having a group lol.”

“No worries, man. Y’all are making great progress and hearing about it makes me happy.”