Lost Ark developer Smilegate RPG said not long ago that the studio had banned a ton of “illegitimate accounts” thought to be bots. The exact number of bans issued wasn’t provided, but Smilegate said over a million were hit by that banwave. That was just the first instance of those bans, however, with more to come regularly. Smilegate also added that it’s even going so far as to change some of the rewards earned by quests in order to deter bots from being created to farm gold.
All this and more was covered in the latest post from the Lost Ark team that addressed some of the top issues affecting the community at this time. The changes administered to the rewards in Lost Ark comes as a result of community concerns about how these bots might affect the in-game economy and whether the botting efforts would devalue the loot other players obtained legitimately. Some Rapport and Guide Quests have been affected by this change, but Smilegate didn’t specify which, exactly, have been altered.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“We’ve also heard player concerns about the effect these bots may have on the in-game economy when it comes to gold buying and selling, and we are closely monitoring this situation,” the latest Lost Ark update said. “We have changed the gold reward to silver for some Rapport and Guide Quest rewards in order to prevent the abuse of these systems by botters and gold farmers.”
For those who might be tempted not to create bots themselves but to purchase gold or other items from those kinds of sources via real-world transactions, Smilegate warned against doing so as it’ll result in an account ban regardless of if you’re the one buying or selling.
“Please also remember that participating in any real-money transactions (RMT) through third party sellers is against our terms of service and will result in an account ban, for both the buyer and seller,” Smilegate said. “To help safeguard your account, be weary of gold and gifts sent to you by users that you don’t know, and always reject any items that show up in your mailbox that you feel uncertain about.”
