ArcheAge

Dead_Rebel said:
Okay, so you guys chatting about this game have gotten me interested - is it worth starting this game? It's got fairly bad reviews on Metacritic from gamers (not critics), so I'm apprehensive but you guys seem to enjoy it.
Click to expand...

Welll, it's free to start, you don't have to spend a dime to get an idea of the game, so might as well try? However be warned, that ultimately this is meant to be played as a subscription game, despite the F2P option.

Simply put, the F2P game consists of Wow-like quest grinding ,Pve Combat and then open world PvP (and except the PvP, i wouldn't say the PvE/Questing as anything to write home about) . You -can- build ships and craft anything , but it's going to be an uphill battle because you need these Labor Points to do this.

So as F2P you can NOT own land, so you can not build a farm and grow crops / trees / animals which are the essentials to complete for example ships and trade runs. You can still farm though, if you find a guild with free space for you OR a space in a highly secret PvP spot no one will find...
 
diabolus said:
Welll, it's free to start, you don't have to spend a dime to get an idea of the game, so might as well try? However be warned, that ultimately this is meant to be played as a subscription game, despite the F2P option.

Simply put, the F2P game consists of Wow-like quest grinding ,Pve Combat and then open world PvP (and except the PvP, i wouldn't say the PvE/Questing as anything to write home about) . You -can- build ships and craft anything , but it's going to be an uphill battle because you need these Labor Points to do this.

So as F2P you can NOT own land, so you can not build a farm and grow crops / trees / animals which are the essentials to complete for example ships and trade runs. You can still farm though, if you find a guild with free space for you OR a space in a highly secret PvP spot no one will find...
Click to expand...

If you do well though you can probably get away with only paying one month and then after that just buying apex from the Ah with in game gold and then use that to pay for your sub.
 
Rhymelark said:
If you do well though you can probably get away with only paying one month and then after that just buying apex from the Ah with in game gold and then use that to pay for your sub.
Click to expand...

Indeed you just need that initial boost to get some "operations" going .

As for the /rage quitting in the game, i picked up the main complaints so far is between these:

1. The Queues and server restrictions (not being able to create characters where your friends are) .

New game, was going to happen. I can only suggest rolling on a new server and hope for transfers . I personally rolled on a queue server initially and rerolled on a new server have not looked back since.

2. Founders/Alpha/Beta players feeling ripped off.

A large proportion of players got the shaft for buying into Alpha/Beta and seemingly not only sat in a queue during headstart but the founder bundles was inferior to the bundles offered right now for new players. I didn't play before launch, so this did not affect me at all.

Tip: DO NOT buy any of the bundles (silver/gold/archeum), buy the credits straight, you get more for $50 of credits than you get for the $50 gold bundle. There are nothing in these bundles you can't buy directly in the store. A few people on forums made the calculation. Rather just buy Patron status without bells and whistles and go from there if you are going to spend money.

3. Bots, Spammers ,Hackers

This is my main gripe, it's terrible. There are a LOT of spam, i have not been annoyed by spam this much in the past. It also does not seem like Trion is winning this battle and they do not seem to have the ability to give players better tools to manage this. The bots/hacks , i have not seen too many of them, but they seem to grind very specific mobs and i'm not there yet. The bots can't grind mining/farming stuff because that requires LP , but mobs that drop stuff that seem attract them in droves.

4. Lack of Housing/Property

Goes with #1, the popular servers are locked down for this very reason. The game is not instanced, there is literally only x amount of space and you will not get property where you want. So again, new server, i have not experienced this problem, there is tons of space in the level range i'm playing (lvl 1-30) aka the "safe zones" . I'm sure even on my server (Nui) there are spots that are full, but i can deal with that.


5. Labor Points and F2P

Free players don't get offline LP regen, so they need to stay online and /afk to regen LP to do anything. This piss off alot of the F2P players. As Patron this is not an issue, you log off, go to bed, next day you got 1500-2000 LP to start off with. F2P will always start with 0 LP, not great and means you are forced to do quest grinding or /afk to get points to do anything interesting everytime you log on.

6. Trion vs XLGames

Trion can't do squat with this game. Any bug, technical problem, balance problem, Code related problem has to go to the korean overlords , XLGames. I don't believe Trion is doing a very good job as being "publisher" at this point. All they seem to do is "translate text/audio". As it is, NA/EU players have zero contact or feedback from XLGames directly, Trion is the "middleman" and they are not communicating much and just going "it's up to XLGames" . So if everyone is raging about bots and hacks, Trion can't fix it and XLGames can happily just ignore us whenever they want to. Not a great situation imho.


The same thing happened in Russia, the publisher there is Mail.RU , and the game seems to have been run into the ground because Mail.RU couldn't do squat either. It remains to be seen if this will repeat with Trion .
 
Last edited:
Free players don't get offline LP regen, so they need to stay online and /afk to regen LP to do anything. This piss off alot of the F2P players. As Patron this is not an issue, you log off, go to bed, next day you got 1500-2000 LP to start off with. F2P will always start with 0 LP, not great and means you are forced to do quest grinding or /afk to get points to do anything interesting everytime you log on.
Click to expand...

I still think they messed this up and should be the other way around. F2P players imho should only get regen while offline and for Patrons it should be more while offline than online.


About people complaining. A lot of people are confusing pay to win with pay to ease. You can get anything from the market place by spending ingame currency to get Apex and as said before you can even get patron status this way.

Yes land is a problem. Luckily even on my server we have seen plots starting to open again as people who claimed land to sell have given up and just letting their taxes lapse. (please be warned there are land scammers about please don't give someone gold they ask thinking they will live up to their end of the bargain and give you the land)

Yes headstart was a mess for most of us founders and most of us missed out on the first land grab. Not that I think it would have been much different even if everyone could have played immediately since there is only so much land in the ideal locations. A lot of the best places were taken within the first hour.

Spammers and hacking is a huge problem. Luckily for me with the character restriction on my server it has gone down a lot as they get banned.
 
So it sounds like there are some exciting mechanics wrapped up in some very fundamental issues. :| Tough choices to make. Myself and 2 or 3 friends are trying to decide if it's worth it but as you say - it's F2P - it might be worth it to just try anyway.
 
Dead_Rebel said:
So it sounds like there are some exciting mechanics wrapped up in some very fundamental issues. :| Tough choices to make. Myself and 2 or 3 friends are trying to decide if it's worth it but as you say - it's F2P - it might be worth it to just try anyway.
Click to expand...

The thing is, the fundamental mechanics are pretty well designed imho. The way how PvP, Economy, Land Ownership, Crafting and Sea/Air warfare works together is of the better designs i've seen. Most of these types of games have no reason for players to do anything but grind or gank to get gear, here there is alot more at stake. So i am hoping it plays out like that, especially if a few big guilds starts to get going.
 
Crafted a bunch of tailoring items last night at 100lp a pop. That sorted my cap problem but damn, those wedges are expensive in bulk.

I think i should buy labour pots with my loyalty tokens and resell on the AH
 
when I 1st started playing the learning curve plus the potential MMO grind really made it hard to play. But after trying to get my 16x16 farm and dying at sea due to pirates was an awesome experience! Now that im well on my way and I nearly have enough to buy APLEX im truly enjoying the game.

The fact that u can get XP from doin basically anytime is awesome. I had spare labour points to burn and my guildies sent me stuff to make and from that burned 1k LP and gained a level. This game reminds me of EvE online with elves and the threats are real and have consequences. Do urself a favour and listen to the trail chat, u will cry laughing! My mate stole a few plants and managed to get a 55min prison sentence, and then he to broke out of prison. I think this game tries to revisit some old MMO concepts that was originally set in stone and attempts to rewrite it. So far we are loving it and anyone is welcome to join us on Jaunders (think that's the name).
 
Janudar. My bro and I rolled alts there after getting fedding up with the queue on Kyprosa. It feels very UO old school'ish.
 
Yea, this game does have something that hooks you at about lvl 15. I looked at the videos / commentary on the game during Alpha/Beta and it bored me to tears , so also did not go into it with much hope. First 10 levels were pretty much "meh" , i like that i got a mount and glider like before lvl 10 , but once i started farming / trade running i could see alot of things that was pulling me in .

And yes, sounds like my experience with that 16x16 farm quest, it's quite an experience doing that quest and suddenly being thrown into the deep end and realizing the possibilities on the sea.

Apparently you get some sort of underwater breathing potion, you can attempt to run on the bottom of the sea (although i bet this will be veeeery slow, it's quite a distance to walk) to get to the other side, aparantly no jelly fish on the ocean floor and players in ships won't see you.
 
well I know u get breathing hoses from a clipper allowing u to check the bottom of the ocean for treasure and lost loot, which im keen to try at some point.

BTW here is a cool trick. when u on a carriage summon ur mount, he continues to get XP while running behind the carriage. Every now and then he despawns are u just summon him again.
 
This blogpost is illustrating exactly my experience with the game so far in terms of "atmosphere":

http://syncaine.com/2014/10/01/aa-trade-routes-bring-life-to-the-roads-and-waves/


...
Once crafted the pack weights you down, reducing your movement speed and disabling the use of your glider or basic mount. You can use a special donkey mount, as well as certain vehicles to speed you up. You can also take advantage of the NPC transportation options such as carriages or air ships.

One very cool aspect of AA you will shortly notice is that players use roads to travel, rather than always going in a straight line from point A to point B like one would in most other games (especially games with flying mounts). This is mostly due to trade routes, as you want to avoid catching agro and having mobs slow you down, or agro on your lower level donkey mount and disable it until you heal it. You certainly feel like you are living in a virtual world traveling down a road with a pack on your back, seeing other traders pass you by, be they on foot, on a donkey, or one of the various steam-punk vehicles. It’s one of those nice little details that answers the question “how do you make roads feel like roads in an MMO?”.

Where you decide to travel with your pack is another important question. If you want to avoid PvP, you can stay on your side of the world. This however limits you to only getting gold as a possible reward, while intercontinental travel gives you the option to select a trade-only resource reward or gilda tokens, which are used for things like buying a house, ship, or vehicle blueprint. You can also access a ‘trade report’ window that shows you current prices of the various trade packs and NPCs, which fluctuate based on turn-in volume, meaning the same route you did yesterday might not be as profitable today. Again just another little touch that breaks up the ‘grind’ that is all too common in MMOs.

If you go with the higher risk/reward option of intercontinental travel, if you get killed you drop your trade pack for anyone else to pick up and turn in. Should the pack be turned in, you will still receive 20% of the reward, but the player who turned it in will get the other 80%.

This opens up a lot of gameplay options, from pirates on the seas to mercenary protection guilds. It also highly encourages guild runs of trade packs, and raises the appeal of the larger ships, especially the merchant ship that can actually hold trade packs so guild members can better defend the ship.
..
Click to expand...


Last night i decided to use the airships as a mode of moving my wares around, it's still a very long wait, but if you don't want to walk along the road and mostly just stand still on the ship / platform it is a nice social way of doing this.
 
Man i really need to get me one of those little cart tractor things which can hold 2 packs. I'm gonna try the inter continental tomorrow morning for the bigger farm.

The blue print is available from the General Merchant for 50g.
There is no prerequisite machining required. ('O' -> Machining -> Vehicles)
It is not upgradeable (Scapes said so in the forums).

There are 2 trade pack slots. As the driver, you can have one on your back. Effectively, you can transport 3 trade packs at a time with roughly donkey speed.

Base speed 4 m/s
W/ Eco fuel 6 m/s (A little faster than carroted donkey w/ item shop pet gear)
Maximum Turning speed is 22.9 degrees/s

To build it at the carpentry workbench, you need...
* 4x Cart wheel
* 1x Cart engine
* 1x Cart shaft
* 1x farm cart design

Cart wheels consist of 10x Lumber, 10x Iron ingot
Cart Engine: 2x fine lumber (10x lumber and 1x small seed oil each), 1x silver ingot, 1x archeum ingot
Cart shaft: 1x Thunderstruck Log, 1x Sturdy ingot (8x iron, 1x copper, and 1x silver ingots + 1x Opaque Polish)

Please note that you can split the Thunderstruck Tree into Thunderstruck logs.
Click to expand...

zapped from reddit
 
Last edited:
Reavs said:
Man i really need to get me one of those little cart tractor things which can hold 2 packs. I'm gonna try the inter continental tomorrow morning for the bigger farm.



zapped from reddit
Click to expand...

Yea i need that too, can you use airships/carriages with that? I imagine not....
 
I really like how alive the world feels. Just go contacted by a guy from a merc guild. I need to contact him if i need an escort on one of my trade runs. We can work out a deal depending on the destination. Obviously inter continental runs are more expensive, especially if you use their ships.
 
It's very cool how you can use/steer other people's ships, alot of options to do things, i.e. like as a trader you can build the ship and let a more experienced person steer it etc. Quite a bit of "GTA" also going on with players stealing ships and making a run for it , you as the owner can't despawn your ships unless you are close to it. You don't lose your ship permanently or anything, but you can't use it for a certain time either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top