If Lost Ark didn't exist. I wouldn't have seen a random unfollowed user on twitter say, "Guys, some play to win games are good. And some not pay to win games are bad. Guys. Guys."
Lost Ark isn't pay to win. It's 'pay to convenience'. You can't just buy the best gear and pay to beat the raids, but you can buy stuff to remove teleport cost or various other quality of life shit that one could argue shouldn't be behind pay wall. But a free to play game is going to try and make money somehow, that's just the nature of the beast.
Also that twitter person is right.
With the entire comment section grilling him for the fact he used to go after bad monetization practices, and also knew exactly what game he was defending. (And I use paid hacks semi-ironically. Youtubers gotta eat too. But it's only because the game has spent "Raid:Shadow Legends" money on advertising itself/paying people daily to play & stream it.
If someone wants to go after bad monetization practices there are dozens of worse examples than Lost Ark. Also, games having streamers do advertisements is not new nor is it always someone faking it. Sometimes, yeah, it's clear that the person is just throwing away morals to make a buck which hey that's the hustle in this world, but sometimes someone can genuinely enjoy a game and also do an ad for it.
I think it's just because I heard some fuck with a thick accent, pretend to be excited when he could jump in an MMO. And it made me lose my mind.
Maybe it was done for laughs. Or maybe he's not an MMO player. You also can't even jump in Lost Ark outside of scripted 'press G to jump' sections. You can dodge roll though which is something a bit more unique to the MMO space.
I've loved to hear examples of ARPG'S it's better than in comparison.
Victor Vran, Titan Quest, Last Epoch, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, I think it's better than Torchlight, MU Legend.
I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Lost Ark, when the hype dies, can sit comfortably among the Diablos and PoEs of the world.
Because you can't have sex with characters in those games but you can in Lost Ark.
But I suppose everyone said the same thing about Tera too. About how great the combat system is. And eh? I suppose it's probably more fun to play, then it is to watch.
TERA was a breath of fresh air in the genre at the time because of its combat but because that's where the focus was you then had to contend with a fetch quest boring ass MMO where the fun stuff wasn't killing mobs but killing BAMs and dungeons but then that game had a myriad of other problems least of all doubling down on giving all the cool shit to the little girl loli race.
TERA could've been cool, man. Now I'm sad.
But the kind of zealous online defense and equal parts hatred that I'm seeing from the community about this dated MMORPG. I think I'll stick with the cash grab I'm already fooling myself into playing. Thanks.
Again, not a cash grab but also it's more of an ARPG with a chat room than a full on MMORPG. I'm not defending the game because, again, I don't think it's the kind of game for me (I like my games to at least pretend to have a story) but I can absolutely understand why there are people genuinely having fun with and enjoying it. Hell, I know someone who wasn't gonna play it and now almost has a max level character with plans to make more and they haven't spent a dime other than the head start.