Despite being infinitely better than New World, Amazon's Lost Ark has been suffering from its own share of problems. The developers are currently battling a major bot infestation that has been messing with the game in a number of ways. This has led some players to react in unwarranted ways, forgetting the fact that the devs are also human beings. In an attempt to combat the bot issue, Amazon has gone ahead and blocked the use of VPNs.
"We have put blockers in place to prevent users from connecting to Lost Ark through VPN services," explained one of the community managers on the Lost Ark discussion forum. "This is one of the steps we are taking combat botters, as it will help prevent them from being able to circumvent some of the restrictions we have in place and make it more difficult for them to connect to the game. (You may see some population drops today; this has confirmed for us that it’s helping keep some of the bots out of the game for the time being.)"
The post went on to mention that the developers are aware that some players use a VPN to play the game in a legitimate way, but it is against the Amazon Games terms of service, which states, "You may not use any technology or technique to obscure or disguise your location.“ Players' accounts will not get banned, but they will be prevented from connecting to the game in order to prevent potential exploits.
The overall reaction from the player base appears to be pretty mixed. While some players have applauded Amazon's decision and have understood why it needed to be done, there are those who feel that the developers should have found another way to reduce the number of bots in the game.
Unfortunately, not all players have been voicing their opinions in a respectable manner, causing one of the community managers to remind players that they are human too. "CMs are human. We have human feelings. We also have human schedules. Most of us are Mon-Fri 9-5 PT. Some of us, like myself, are on weekends and nights. We take sick days. And vacation. We have on days and off days," wrote community manager Shadow_Fox.