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Lost Ark has banned 'several million' bot accounts

Smilegate RPG has outlined how it's fighting back against bots and hackers in Lost Ark.

Donovan Erskine

May 18, 2022 8:40 AM

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NA and EU players have been enjoying Lost Ark since it expanded to those regions back in February. However, there have been some road bumps in the experience. This includes the overwhelming amount of bots and scammers that appear to be at every corner. It’s a problem that developer Smilegate RPG is quite aware of, and has provided an update on what it’s doing to combat the issue.

Smilegate recently shared a post to the Lost Ark website all about bots, hackers, and spam accounts. The developer expresses that it’s been an ongoing battle since launch, and that it can be a challenge to stop botting in a free-to-play game where anyone can sign up and play. That said, Smilegate RPG shares that it’s taken the following steps to combat bots and hackers in Lost Ark.

• Permanently banned several million accounts that participated in botting, hacking, or gold selling.
• Level-gated area chat to keep brand-new accounts from spamming gold-selling advertisements.
• Actively updated the game’s automatic chat moderation with lines and phrases that we know are commonly used by gold sellers.
• Changed the reward structures of quests and events to add a stronger deterrent against using bots to farm gold.
• Updated and improved Easy Anti Cheat detection capabilities to better identify and act against bots.
• Enabled a native detection system to help quickly identify bad actors and take action against them.
• Improved reporting tools in-game to help our players report bots and our support staff act more quickly on reports.
• Blocked IP from regions where we do not have publishing rights that have shown large amounts of bot activity.
• Blocked VPNs to stop bad actors from working around IP bans.

Perhaps the most notable tidbit here is that a staggering several million accounts have been banned for botting/hacking. It goes to show just how widespread of an issue it is within the MMO.

This isn’t the first time that Smilegate RPG has spoken out about Lost Ark’s bot issues, but it seems like the developer has a detailed game plan to fight against those ruining the experience for others. For more Lost Ark news and guides, stick with us here on Shacknews.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_