Lost Ark Will Start Passing Out Suspensions For "Bussing" In Party Finder Or Spamming Area Chat

If you aren't familiar with the MMORPG term "Bussing," it's probably because you're a western gamer. On this side of the globe you tend to hear the word "Carry" over "Bussing." Either way, it's the practice of paying someone, usually with in-game gold, items, or some other game currency, to get a higher-level, better-geared, or more experienced player to drag your butt through some piece of content. This is totally separate from online services that charge you real cash to sign into your account and clear content right on your account. Besides being risky, those type of real money transactions (RMTs) are usually forbidden by the user agreement in most games.

Bussing or Carrying, on the other hand, may be a totally fine practice in some games, while other games may frown upon it. Until now, Lost Ark had fallen into the previous camp. They didn't have an issue with bussing, but it was always advertised as an "at risk" activity. Sometimes you just don't know where the gold or items actually came from when you get paid and if the team ends up removing them because they were stolen or obtained nefariously, you're just out. No questions.

Starting tomorrow, February 18th, bussing will no longer be allowed to be advertised in the game's in-game party finder or via spamming things like Area chat. For the first two weeks, initial offenses will be suspensions that are measured in minutes and a warning. Subsequent infractions will increase the duration of the suspension, though. After that two week period, suspensions will start at 1 day and start ramping up to monthlong suspensions for repeat offenders.

The change in policy comes as part of the team's focus to make the MMO's party finder more "new player" friendly and to encourage others to help actually teach returning players how to clear content. As a large part of this initiative, Lost Ark will look at ways to bring the previous Mokoko Bootcamp event back as a standard part of the the MMO. The overhauled version of this "mentoring" event will see new rewards, too.

This all comes as the February update will add the new Wildsoul class and progression events to support the new class. Make sure to get all the specifics from the official post if you've been doing some bussing in the past. Don't want to get yourself in trouble.