An appeal from someone in the Middle East.

[∀zark]

Since apparently Smilegate also looks at these posts on steam and reddit, I'm here to make an appeal for someone who's been a ME MMO gamer for decades hoping that someone from Amazon or Smilgate reads this.

For Smilegate I have this to say: Who is going to publish this game in this region? Who? This region has no publisher that is ready or able to localize and publish Lost Ark. Are you going to self publish? Yeah good luck localizing this game that has so many religious tones and ummm so many people and enemies you'll have to censor. There are so many barriers and challenges to publishing/localizing games in the ME that most don't bother and I don't blame them.

For Amazon I have this to say: You are the prime publisher to publish this game for the ME region and guess what? You don't even have to localize it, you don't have to have Arabic support, you don't even need to have a ME server (heck you don't even need to regional price it) all you gotta do is open it to us ME players. We ME players have been playing on EU servers for years and the ping is a non issue. We don't care about any of those things, we just want to play.

Being a MMO gamer in the ME has always been a struggle, we're either IP blocked or we have to deal with ping and the kicker is 99% of the time we don't get a ME server for our MMOS that region block us but you know what? we deal with it because we want to play. We are more than happy to play in the EU region.

[ラグナ [Aracune]]

Use a VPN for now. It can take a some time before they will get publishing rights for some countries. Even if Amazon wants to let middle east players play in eu region - smilegate would not agree to that. In the end its about money too.

[seiko]

引用自 ∀zark：

Since apparently Smilegate also looks at these posts on steam and reddit, I'm here to make an appeal for someone who's been a ME MMO gamer for decades hoping that someone from Amazon or Smilgate reads this.

For Smilegate I have this to say: Who is going to publish this game in this region? Who? This region has no publisher that is ready or able to localize and publish Lost Ark. Are you going to self publish? Yeah good luck localizing this game that has so many religious tones and ummm so many people and enemies you'll have to censor. There are so many barriers and challenges to publishing/localizing games in the ME that most don't bother and I don't blame them.

For Amazon I have this to say: You are the prime publisher to publish this game for the ME region and guess what? You don't even have to localize it, you don't have to have Arabic support, you don't even need to have a ME server (heck you don't even need to regional price it) all you gotta do is open it us to ME players. We ME players have been playing on EU servers for years and the ping is a non issue. We don't care about any of those things, we just want to play.

Being a MMO gamer in the ME has always been a struggle, we're either IP blocked or we have to deal with ping and the kicker is 99% of the time we don't get a ME server for our MMOS that region block us but you know what? we deal with it because we want to play. We are more than happy to play in the EU region.

Use vpn as suggested

[Etniuh]

Im from south america country that has ip lock so i rather not play the game than play it with vpn, i already have 200ms and if i use a vpn ill get like 300 ms playing the game so no ill just dont play the game

[∀zark]

We've always used VPNs, however this case is very unique. While in the past using a VPN to bypass region locks was always a risk, for Steam it's an even greater risk as they're way more attentive to using vpns with their service.

If this game didn't have a steam client non of us would care but we would like to play Lost Ark without the risk of losing our accounts (or even if we use a throwaway account, our time spent playing).

There is also the issue of buying stuff (like we're even blocked on Amazon), using a VPN to purchase or having a friend log in to purchase stuff via steam will pose an even greater risk.

That's why it would be very ideal for not just ME but anyone who is region locked to be unblocked.

[PantsuMask]

why you think smilegate had it put on steam? :) think about that.

[Ark]

引用自 PantsuMask：

why you think smilegate had it put on steam? :) think about that.

Because there's an added layer of complexity to create and manage your own launcher. The only reason.

[Mamba out]

im all up for a ME support, it would be better if ME has a local server, which is very likely based in Dubai in Amazon servers. if possible.

[SeAsTaR]

I am not really sure myself but isn't it hard to publish games in the Middle East?

"Countries like Saudi have authorities in place that enforce content guidelines so that everything in the public sphere abides to what Islam says is right and wrong."

[∀zark]

引用自 SeAsTaR：

I am not really sure myself but isn't it hard to publish games in the Middle East?

"Countries like Saudi have authorities in place that enforce content guidelines so that everything in the public sphere abides to what Islam says is right and wrong."

Well Saudi is one part of the middle east but for the most part they just block games/sites that don't adhere to their guidelines. Amazon or any publisher itself won't get in trouble (unless that publisher originated from said country.) But places like Egypt do not have such guidelines.

But that won't even matter if they just open up EU/NA to us, no middle eastern country can get Amazon in trouble and if they don't like Lost Ark (for whatever reason) said country would just block it's citizens from accessing it.

[Soul Reaver]

A separate release for Middle East won't work, it will have a very small playerbase and will be extremely p2w.

We had very bad experiences with localized games in Middle East.
just look at Turkey/MENA server for BDO, most players there speak Turkish only and the game doesn't even support Arabic language, Arab players there are a minority, besides that many countries from Middle East are banned from accessing Turkey/MENA version and my country is one of them.

localizing a game for Middle East is just a bad idea.

[SeAsTaR]

引用自 Talosmith：

A separate release for Middle East won't work, it will have a very small playerbase and will be extremely p2w.

We had very bad experiences with localized games in Middle East.
just look at Turkey/MENA server for BDO, most players there speak Turkish only and the game doesn't even support Arabic language, Arab players there are a minority, besides that many countries from Middle East are banned from accessing Turkey/MENA version and my country is one of them.

localizing a game for Middle East is just a bad idea.

Middle Eastern people probably wouldn't care about money since they are pretty rich. It is probably mostly the strict rules.

[Soul Reaver]

引用自 SeAsTaR：

引用自 Talosmith：

A separate release for Middle East won't work, it will have a very small playerbase and will be extremely p2w.

We had very bad experiences with localized games in Middle East.
just look at Turkey/MENA server for BDO, most players there speak Turkish only and the game doesn't even support Arabic language, Arab players there are a minority, besides that many countries from Middle East are banned from accessing Turkey/MENA version and my country is one of them.

localizing a game for Middle East is just a bad idea.

Middle Eastern people probably wouldn't care about money since they are pretty rich. It is probably mostly the strict rules.

Middle East people being pretty rich is not true lol.
also we don't have strict rules for games here, even in Saudi Arabia a game like Lost Ark won't get banned there.

the thing is, publisher companies in Middle East are dead; we got only few localized games here and all of them are 10-15 years old, chances for Lost Ark getting localized in Middle East are 0

[PantsuMask]

引用自 Talosmith：

引用自 SeAsTaR：

Middle Eastern people probably wouldn't care about money since they are pretty rich. It is probably mostly the strict rules.

Middle East people being pretty rich is not true lol.
also we don't have strict rules for games here, even in Saudi Arabia a game like Lost Ark won't get banned there.

the thing is, publisher companies in Middle East are dead; we got only few localized games here and all of them are 10-15 years old, chances for Lost Ark getting localized in Middle East are 0

Yup.. A person with a sound mind and post. *All might thumbs Up*

[∀zark]

引用自 Talosmith：

引用自 SeAsTaR：

Middle Eastern people probably wouldn't care about money since they are pretty rich. It is probably mostly the strict rules.

Middle East people being pretty rich is not true lol.
also we don't have strict rules for games here, even in Saudi Arabia a game like Lost Ark won't get banned there.

the thing is, publisher companies in Middle East are dead; we got only few localized games here and all of them are 10-15 years old, chances for Lost Ark getting localized in Middle East are 0

This is my biggest concern, if we don't get unblocked from NA/EU then the odds are we will never be able to play Lost Ark legally.

Smilegate is known to be very picky with who gets to publish their game and in what region and there is no one here that can handle Lost Ark so it makes more sense to group ME with EU. If we don't get grouped up then I hard doubt we'll get grouped up with any other region that may or may not get a localization.

Like I feel bad for the other regions (especially the EU countries that got excluded from EU) since we're all on the same boat but SA, SEA, OCE all have publishers in their respective regions so even if they don't get into NA/EU they may still get a version of LA (in god knows how many years though). ME doesn't have anyone at all and there is no way this game will be localized for our region.

[ashkn]

引用自 ∀zark：

Since apparently Smilegate also looks at these posts on steam and reddit, I'm here to make an appeal for someone who's been a ME MMO gamer for decades hoping that someone from Amazon or Smilgate reads this.

For Smilegate I have this to say: Who is going to publish this game in this region? Who? This region has no publisher that is ready or able to localize and publish Lost Ark. Are you going to self publish? Yeah good luck localizing this game that has so many religious tones and ummm so many people and enemies you'll have to censor. There are so many barriers and challenges to publishing/localizing games in the ME that most don't bother and I don't blame them.

For Amazon I have this to say: You are the prime publisher to publish this game for the ME region and guess what? You don't even have to localize it, you don't have to have Arabic support, you don't even need to have a ME server (heck you don't even need to regional price it) all you gotta do is open it to us ME players. We ME players have been playing on EU servers for years and the ping is a non issue. We don't care about any of those things, we just want to play.

Being a MMO gamer in the ME has always been a struggle, we're either IP blocked or we have to deal with ping and the kicker is 99% of the time we don't get a ME server for our MMOS that region block us but you know what? we deal with it because we want to play. We are more than happy to play in the EU region.

like for real middle east is under eu servers in all games