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Amazon outlines why it changed Lost Ark Artist class skins for Western audiences

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Amazon Games has outlined a little more about Lost Ark's all-new advanced class, Artist, including an explanation about why it chose to "make localisation updates" that modified Artists skins to make them less sexualised and "better fit Western norms".

The first in an "entirely new class category" called Specialists, the Artist is "capable of tactical versatility with illusion powers, and specialises in supporting her team".

"The Artist’s Class identity is built around the Harmony Meter Identity Gauge," Amazon explains. "Landing skills on enemies will fill up three Harmony Orbs which can be used to cast two Identity Skills – Moonfall and Sunrise.

"Similar to other Advanced Classes, the Artist has two unique Class Engravings: Full Bloom, which improves her support capabilities, and Recurrence, which bolsters her offense. The Artist’s skill categories consist of Stroke, Paint and Masterwork skills; players can choose to attack foes directly or summon beasts or dimensional energy to inflict damage by painting them."

The team also addressed the "speculation" about how the Artist Class would arrive in the game's Western version, saying it wanted to be "transparent" about why the class has been modified for Western audiences, including adding shorts under short skirts.

"While our goal is to preserve the authenticity of the original game, we also work with Smilegate RPG to make localisation updates to ensure the game feels approachable and representative of our Western players," the team said.

"Nothing gameplay-related will change for the Artist Class, but some skins will be modified to better fit Western norms. Specifically, skins with short skirts will have shorts added underneath the skirt, and other skins will have adjusted pant lengths or tights added. We will be working to preserve the original spirit of the skins when applying these changes to ensure players will have a variety of compelling customisation options for this uniquely versatile class."

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Sakura

Member
What is the target audience for this game supposed to be?
This isn't going to be a mainstream game appealing to the masses, so what is the point?
If anything they should go all in.

Game will probably be dead in a couple years any way though.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Lost Ark has been heavily changed since launch to fit what Amazon deem as "western ideals" this included changing each classes base armor, when called out they originally said they didn't, when given proof they had they said it didn't matter anyway...

My favorite is that they kept making random characters black

zPUL9W5.jpg


Again originally this was deemed a "shader issue" right up until the badly altered character cards where data mined at which point amazon switched to "WHY DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS YOU RACIST?" forgetting that they where overwriting a Korean character with a black one for the sake of...

Anyway, Lost Ark sucks not because of all this shit, but because its a generic F2P game which makes sure to have as many problem mechanics as possible where the solution is "buy this item from the store" to resolve.
 
The funny thing here is that the online audience keeps focusing on outfit changes. Meanwhile Amazon is destroying the rest of the game by not releasing content at the correct pace or just outright missing entire chunks of content, overcharging prices compared to the KR servers, and being horrible at support when people run into issues.

By all means though internet, keep getting more mad that sexy outfit 17 was slightly edited for a different audience.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Lost Ark would be fine if they focused more on playing the game and not wanting you to buy something from cash shop to look hot or pay for convenience. It became P2W quite quickly. The censorship and agendas in a Korean game just isn't necessary.

Like the game has potential but currently you can play Titan Quest, PoE, Grim Dawn, Diablo 2/3/Immortal and probably D4 in June and have a better time. Without a cash shop being thrown in your face either.
 
Imagine playing this generic Korean game instead of the 20 other generic Korean games out there which are published by the original Korean publisher and are uncensored
 
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