The main reason people keep complaining about censorship and the changes to npcs and items in the game is because they are afraid of the game being delayed again or its release date procrastinated again and again.
They fear development time will go entirely into this rather that quikly fixing the remaining bugs and the translation errors.
I, also think, the community is on the edge of a breaktrough because people have been waiting for so long to play this game.
At this time, the only thing that can calm everyone down is bring some certainties into the equation and announce the release date as soon as possible.
Frankly speaking, it’s weird this game does not have a firm release date yet, and the more time passes the stranger it feels.
I think other 30 working days are enough to fix most of the major bugs in the game and a January release date is the best solution to everyones problems. Moreover, I tell you that few bugs at release will do less harm than keep people waiting and waiting for months.
With some certainties the community will be relieved and you will be able to focus on the game without the fear to loose playerbase on the new drama for the umpteenth time.
Actually, the reason why many are upset with the censorship and unnecessary changes is because the release was delayed and despite the fact that critical problems were still unresolved in beta, these changes that no one asked for took priority in implementation, despite the fact that implementing these changes take resources and time, and putting in these changes can easily create additional problems in the game which eats up even more time and resources.
On the contrary, one of the big motivation for people brushing the issue off is because people do not want another delay to undo the mess they’ve created.
That would be fantastic but also will shock us considering the history of their communication and interaction with the community. Remember, this is the same group of people that kept repeating macro message about release and beta date until going radio silent for a week before dropping delay news.
30 working days may or may not be enough and considering the state the beta was in, it was pretty clear there was good amount of work that needed to be completed. As much as I’d love earlier release, I’d rather have a complete game rather than a half broken one. Once again despite all this, they prioritized these PC changes… ugh…
Perhaps not many remember the debacle this pre-release journey has been thus far. AGS has yet to prove themselves to be trustworthy and/or capable let alone give a damn about the playerbase.
Despite warnings and concerns, they pushed ahead with regional pricing which quickly became a disaster with overnight price hike without announcement.
They’ve also changed Founder’s pack content overnight without announcement.
They have also disappointed Plat pack purchasers with rehashed 3 year old cosmetics for Plat exclusive avatars.
They have kept responding to players that everything is on schedule for beta and release then went radio silent just about a week before delay announcement.
They have continuously reassured us that there will not be censorship ingame when many raised concerns over censored outfits in PV materials.
Those are just some events that went down off the top of my head over the months leading up to the present day. It feels like we should almost be grateful if the game comes out in one piece in 2022
From my point of view, and playing lost ark for the first time in the beta, my feelings were incredible. Small errors such as translations and more, can be corrected with updates, delaying the game for small polishes will not help anyone! The fans will do more publicity than any platform, word of mouth is very powerful!
The delay for their westernization is annoying but more importantly it’s a huge red flag and indication of what’s to come and how this publisher will act in the future. Westernization shows clearly that their top priority is imposing political ideology onto this game. Nobody asked for these polarizing and controversial changes, they just decided this is what is in our best interest despite feedback contrary. Meanwhile things as basic as english translations are completely scuffed. This shows that the publisher doesn’t have their priorities in order and puts feedback of their consumers below their own ideals. Game devs and publishers that ignore what their customers are asking for tend to not succeed.
Here’s just one example of the scuffed translations I’m talking about:
This skill is called Buddha’s Palm on the RU client via the free community made translator app.
The skill can either be hand(s) spanking the earth from above or being pushed along the ground horizontally away from the caster.
This is the Amazon Games version of the same skill, image taken from the fextralife wiki
That’s “localization” the “Western audience” wants.
Remove anything that might have any kind of cultural nuance and may potentially trigger someone who is probably clinically insane while using MS paint to color people in.
Why do you think NO class have the “master” term anymore. This is now bad to use the words “master” / “slave” in computer science so in games ?! No way. We are doomed
Not to mention the fact the all the class presentation has a token darker skinned character besides Warriors (Shushire). If you’re curious, look into the background lore of Shushire (cough… cough… slavery… cough…)
Game studios are now brimming with people more concerned about the almost completely irrelevant to normal people political correctness than how to actually code/do their actual jobs. I would bet a nut that is why New World is in the dogshit state it is.
it was nowhere near ready.
