As players have feared

As players have feared

The requests for an Oceania server region began back in November 2021, several months prior to the global launch. In a thread with the title "Please Reconsider Oceania Servers"(opens in new tab) user ooglydit Lost Ark Gold wrote "While I'm very thankful for the effort AGS have done to get the region lock removed for Australia & New Zealand, having a dedicated server to our region would go leaps and bounds in making the game more enjoyable for us." The main reason behind the request was concerns over high ping when connecting to more distant servers. "As the situation is we have only two options, which are EU/NA, we're looking at either -250 ping in NA or -300 ping for EU."

It appears that the concerns expressed by ooglydit were legitimate. In the moment it, the plea of Oceania servers ranks as the top post on the Lost Ark forums, with over 3,000 respondents adding to the call for a region-specific server and that number is growing.

As players have feared, the high rates of ping that result from connecting to distant servers can negatively impact the experience. "I feel like I'm missing out on being satisfied with my abilities: as the delay between animation and impact/result puts an imperceptible damper on everything," writes user Poppleop. Meanwhile, Rigeth notes that pings that are high put Oceania players on the wrong side of PvP. "It's also more common for the majority of Australians to best place to buy Lost Ark Gold have a ping of 203ms or more and so when we go into PVP and are up against an opponent with 18ms or higher, we'll usually lose 1v1" the players point out.