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Lost Ark players were left reeling over the weekend (Monday 16th January) after those with inactive accounts found themselves caught up in a wave of bot bans.<\/span><\/p>\n January\u2019s hit on bots was a hefty affair, with Amazon Games stating that \u201cmany players have noticed a drop off in the number of concurrent users displayed in Lost Ark\u2019s Steam stats. This change is the direct result of a roll out of a significant number of bot account bans, which utilised new and highly-effective tactics to target and remove bots from the game\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, a large number of Steam users who hadn\u2019t played the MMO action role-playing game were caught out by these \u2018highly-effective tactics\u2019 and found themselves slapped with a ban.<\/span><\/p>\n These bans appear publicly on players\u2019 profiles \u2013 and it\u2019s safe to say people were not happy about it.<\/span><\/p>\n Since the sudden bans were dropped over the weekend, players have taken to Lost Ark\u2019s Steam page to complain \u2013 <\/span>with more than 1,300 negative reviews left on on Saturday<\/span><\/a>, and more than 1,000 on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n Now game developers have taken to the official Lost Ark forum<\/a> to share an update on the situation, writing: \u201cGreetings heroes of Arkesia. Following a recent wave of bot bans, we saw an increase in ban appeals from players who had been incorrectly impacted by these bans.<\/span><\/p> \u201cWe determined the error that triggered these false bans, and have reversed [them] for all affected players regardless of whether a support ticket has been filed. This means any game bans or marks on your Steam account have been removed, or will be removed without penalty shortly.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn the meantime, you are still welcome to <\/span>submit a Ban Appeal ticket to Customer Support<\/span><\/a> so that the team can more quickly assist with restoring your account and removing all penalties.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThank you for your reports and patience as we work to make this right with affected players.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Interested in trying out Lost Ark for yourself? Here\u2019s our day-one first impressions of the game<\/a> and whether we think it\u2019s worth playing.<\/p>