Lost Ark is limiting new character creation to address long queue times

(Image credit: Smilegate RPG)

The Smilegate-developed, Amazon-operated MMO Lost Ark has got off to a very strong start, peaking at more than 500,000 concurrent players on Steam. Unfortunately, that's resulted in long queue times on some servers, and in response the developers have placed a limit on character creation by new players on those servers.

Existing players on the impacted servers will still be able to create new characters for their roster, but new players will not be allowed to join or create characters on them. Limited servers include:

Mari
Valtan

NA East

Azena
Una
Regulus
Avesta

EU Central

Kadan
Trixion
Thirain
Zinnervale
Asta

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A time frame for the character creation limit wasn't set, but the Lost Ark team said it will be in place "for the foreseeable future." Additional servers, beginning with one in EU Central (Beatrice) and one in NA East (Elzowin) will be rolled out.

"While we have been excited to see the amazing response and support surrounding Lost Ark’s Head Start, we know that the server and queue situation has been frustrating for many players," Lost Ark community manager Roxx wrote. "Our team is actively working to help mitigate these issues ahead of our free-to-play launch on Friday. While limiting character creation and opening new servers is just one small part of addressing this complex situation, we will have additional information about the multiple steps we are taking available for players later today."

Lost Ark was taken offline at 8 am ET today for a hotfix, with downtime estimated at up to four hours. The update is aimed at addressing the following issues:

Fixed area chat, which now will allow all players to talk to other players in a given area.
Fusion Material rewards from the Welcome Challenge have been increased to better support player progression.
Mari’s Secret Store will now display the regional server time instead of UTC.
Fixed quest dialog UI to avoid text overlap on certain 4K resolutions.
Player names will no longer be shown as “Unknown Player” in Voice Chat UI.
The words “Royal Crystals” and “Crystalline Aura” are now displaying in non-English languages in the Steam overlay when finalizing a transaction.
Fixed the title “Nightmare” which was displaying as blank.
World bosses now drop the proper gear for the Martial Artist classes.
Added an option for Voice Over on the Character Selection screen.
Sorceress audio now plays when playing in a non-English language.
All classes now have audio when using voices 2, 3, or 4 in a non-English language.
VO is now present in the “Stronghold Ceremony” quest cinematic.
VO has been added for Kazeros in the “With Gratitude” quest cinematic.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.