Before I go in depth; let me go ahead and say that Ark isn't really a bad novel and you could definitely do worse if you want to read a VRMMO novel, but you could also go read The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (henceforth 'LMS') instead of this if you haven't done so yet.

Ark was written after LMS was and it shows, as the story reads as an LMS tribute at best and an LMS fanfic at worst. The names are all different, the basic ways the virtual world works are all different, but the structure and flow of the story, along with many of the characters and motivations almost all have obvious analogs with LMS, down to the MC being a less charismatic version of the LMS protagonist.

Ark does a couple of things right; a few of his plans contain some interesting strategical elements, and the sheer creative depths he goes to in order make a few more gold coins can be entertaining. Sadly, this comes at the cost of the plot running in 4 to 5 volume 'loops', as well as the story being shallow compared to LMS.

What do I mean about loops? Here's how roughly 4 volumes of Ark tend to go:

1: Ark gets an oddly specific or unusual skill, most likely from advancing his class quest storyline.

2: This new ability turns out to be useful to Ark, he uses it a lot and makes a good profit from it.

3: Crisis! Something happens and only somebody with the new ability Ark has can save the day!

3.5: If that doesn't work, miracle nursing is a get out of jail free card that will fix the situation every time.

4: The day is saved thanks to Ark, he then rips off as many people as he can, usually in an unkind way.

5: Ark finds he's relying too much on his new skill and it's getting his ass kicked by the new monster of the day, he goes back to his martial arts basics, practices a lot and vows never to overuse the previous skill again.

6: Return to step 1.

That's all the story is when you distill it down to the basic elements, it goes through the motions about five times and I was grinding my teeth a bit towards the end, then it rushes the introduction and beating of the final boss and everything else in a few short volumes; with the help of plenty of deus ex machina.

Honestly though, my biggest gripe with the series is that the world in LMS feels like a living, breathing, and organic world; rich detail is given about many aspects of it which in turn paint the image of a world of endless possibilities, where you can play for any reason and truly do whatever you like. Conversely, the world in Ark feels almost wooden and little is described that Ark is not about to experience first hand, giving the world of Ark an almost hollow feeling to it.

The protagonist of LMS exists for his world and he only adds to the depth of it, but the way the world of Ark is written makes it exist for him alone and that only detracts from it.

To repeat what I said at the start; this isn't a bad novel and if you're looking for more VRMMO novels to read then this is a decent choice, just do not expect it to be better than LMS as it will never be as good as it.

First, this a 4 star novel, not a 5 star novel. However, because people are being really unfair with their ratings I decided to give it 5 to counter balance that. Everyone keeps comparing Ark to LMS. While they are similar, it is not more than Zhan Long is similar to LMS. The difference is Ark is more tolerable than Zhan Long. I'm not going to go on about why everyone is wrong. Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

Cons:

I just dont understand why some ppl give this novel poor ratings.

Sure yeah, Ark is similar to LMS but so is majority of the other works similar to something else, so there is no need to diss it because of it. And more importantly Ark is not a copy of lms and has its own plot and peronally I find it a lot more entartaining.

Sure, there is sometimes when character / plot irritates me but it is just a tiny part of the whole thing and sometimes those anoying parts are relevant for the bigger picture, so they are not a minus, at least in my opinion.

So give this novel a try and dont prejudge it because of dissing lms fans.

I don't get all the reviews. Sure it is not as good as LMS, but it is still one of the best VRMMO novel out there. The MC is not that much OP compared to LMS and it is a good thing in my opinion. He uses all his items well and con everybody, so he is a very smart MC. Very underate MC. I rated it 5 because the novel doesn't deserve this grade. I still love LMS, but it is a good alternative.

I feel like you need to understand the Korean culture before you rave about claiming "plagiarism"! It happens with Kdrama, Kpop, fashion, EVERYTHING. When one thing gets popular the idea will wave over the whole industry where people will get inspired through it and add their own twist. I feel like this is the case with Ark vs Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. If you get to the nitty gritty details of the chapter, the way the author goes about the story is different. They are both virtual reality and they both make their money through the game so you can't help having the same elements. But, this story has original quest ideas and adventure plots. The author added enough of his own personality and I very much appreciate his work.

I have only read 9 volumes, I'll probably finish it before next week. However, I felt compelled to write this review because of the bad ones. This novel is similar to LMS in the same way UFC is to boxing. There is a virtual reality game and the MC has struggled economically and uses the game to pay for life. That being said everything else is different, their reasons are different. Ark is applying for a job, the world is different, with dimensions, underwater worlds, and the Darkness. The Villains are extremely unlikable and unrelatable. The reviews for this story emphasize the similarities, but truth be told the world of Ark is a lot smaller and too different. And to those who claim Ark is a douche who doesn't care for anyone, why do you think he possesses Advanced Nursing and the many titles? This novel is not my favorite novel, however, I feel appalled at all the sh*t it gets because it has some similarities to LMS.

Very similar to LMS, but that's understandable since the LMS concept was popular of course there'll be a lot of other novels with similar genre, but even if ARK is similar to LMS it's still different in some ways I actually think there's SAO element in the novel. For me it's a good novel I love the plot development, the mysteries, the slow love development, the character development, and the idiot and absurd characters that made reading fun especially the familiars of the MC, very lovable! Made me want to get a snake xD

I'll be frank, I really don't like this LN. In fact, I downright hate it. I couldn't even read a quarter of the story before I got fed up with it.

The reason I hate this LN so much is, when compared to the other Korean LN "The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor", they are, trope for trope, as identical as you can get without plagiarism suits happening. Ark's author would be the one getting sued. And LMS is better anyway.

Let me list the similarities (don't worry, no spoilers) :

The MCs of both stories are poor AF, for slightly different but ultimately irrelevant reasons. They both have cute little sisters, and an ailing parental figure (grandma and mom for LMS and Ark, respectively). They are both therefore jerks with gold hearts and are obsessed with caring for their families by auctioning items from a 'true' virtual reality game a la SAO (with fewer flaws) (not to say there are no flaws) (writers really can't do game design for some reason) for real-world cash.

Therefore, they are practically OCD when it comes to collecting japtem, aka. "20 bear asses".

Both LNs feature romantically hopeless martial artists that join the game to have enjoyable fights. Said martial artists were sought out by both MCs in order to improve the MCs' skills in-game via application of IRL techniques learned from said martial artists off-screen.

Both LNs feature a certain merchant player that the MC shamelessly takes advantage of.

Each MC has a single, rich, as*hole antagonist that's basically the #1 account in the game before the MC comes around.

Within the game, both MCs get locked into shitty-looking 'hidden classes' early on. #badgamedesign

Both MCs have minions. Both MCs treat their minions abominably, yet somehow retain their loyalty. (But Ark's minions are #different)

Pretty girls in general (and one romantic-interest girl in particular) hang all over the MC for no apparent reason. (Ark does this in a much skeevier fashion than LMS) (which actually goes about it halfway decently and even builds up to it).

***

Quite a list.

Literally the only differences are in minor details, and even then LMS comes out on top.

LMS at least runs with the question of, "If you live in a world where combat proficiency is necessary, of what use are artistic professions?" Weed (the MC of LMS) gets forced into the artistic Sculptor class and becomes a boss anyway. On the other hand, the class Ark (the titular MC of Ark) is handed is just some ban*l assassin/beast tamer knockoff (which involves a rather s*upid name and backstory, to boot).

Even the game mechanics are virtually identical, to an inexcusable degree. The death penalty is slightly different between games, there's a differing random stat type or two, Ark uses single-use 'scrolls', the quest difficulties use ever so slightly different ranking systems and... that's it. That's all the differences. Ark just avoids gaining "Fame" stat where Weed actively increases his "Fame" stat, which in plot terms means literally nothing.

***

I mean, look at all this. What am I supposed to rate Ark as?? It really, really doesn't have any merits to call its' own. I won't be finishing the story; so, sorry.

First of all, one should notice that most of those who rated below 4 or 3 were not even able to read even half of the novel. Yes, they were only able to see the tip of the iceberg. Fortunately for many, this is complete already therefore, you can appreciate the plot development much better. It's worth it, I promise.

Well I finished this already awhile back. I diligently waited for updates while it was still in progress. Now there's a Sequel called 'Ark The Legend'. I'm disappointed that a lot of people keep comparing this to LMS and Weed when they are clearly different. I'm a critical reader, I don't finish books based on character development, plot, etc. But I finished this book.

Spoiler

Alan gets his bad ending in Ark but he shows up in the sequel. You'll see something surprising.

Well that's it. Just read level-headedly. Dont read on your own terms but based on the character's motives and personality.

Ark is like LMS, except very boring. The main character is weak as hell. I recommend LMS to anyone who wants to read Ark and advice not to read this.