Lost Ark devs apologize for server problems with premium currency gift, then immediately try to revoke it
Lost Ark has been suffering through technical problems, as of late; players have been getting disconnected from the MMO's servers for no reason, and bots are running rampant. Meanwhile, the Lost Ark team is attempting to get players ready for a major update set to take place on Wednesday. This overhaul will require players to log in and store their gear, as the update will change how skills work. An in-game reminder mail that went out to Lost Ark accounts seemed to serve as an apology gift as well, because it included 10 "Pheons", a small amount of premium currency that the game uses for its auction house. Players assumed that this was compensation due to the server outages and problems that players had been encountering, especially as it's a common form of apology for online games that experience unexpected downtime.
To put it into perspective, 10 pheons is a very small amount. A single accessory in-game costs 25 pheons, and ability stones cost 9 pheons each. It can often take 200-300 pheons just to roll a 7/7 stone that's "end-game" ready, and that can mean upwards of 100, 000 gold spent on RNG rolls.
However, hours after the Pheons were sent out to all players, the Lost Ark team took the game down for emergency maintenance. According to the developers, the 10 Pheons weren't meant to be sent out in the first place, and they would be revoking them from anyone who claimed them. This worried players who had already spent them, wondering if they would be charged or go into a negative balance. Once the game came back online, after multiple extensions of the emergency maintenance and five total hours of downtime, the team decided to not revoke the accidental gift, claiming that most used the Pheons assuming it was all in good faith. According to them, an exploit was discovered where players could duplication and infinitely earn Pheons from the mail, however it was not widely exploited.
After all that, the Lost Ark team has apologized to the playerbase, and will be issuing an apology gift--a real one this time--to its users.
Last night we sent out an in-game message to notify players of the upcoming critical adjustments to the Tripod system, which require Skill Tree Effects to be stored in the Skill Tree Inventory ahead of the November 16th update to avoid losing them. Unfortunately this message had an unintended 10 Pheons attached, which could be claimed on every character, and could subsequently be exploited by deleting and re-creating new characters. To remove the message and the potential economic exploit, an emergency downtime was induced.
We apologize for the downtime’s inconvenience and the confusion experienced by many Lost Ark players. We are currently evaluating options for a make-good gift, and will provide an update within 24hrs on the compensation all players will receive.
While we originally stated we planned to remove the Pheons from the accounts that received the mail, we understand that many players spent these in good faith. As we caught the exploit before it was widely used, we have decided not remove the Pheons. We hope to continue to provide valuable rewards throughout the rest of the month, and once again apologize to the players impacted by this.
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