Testing Arch Age (An Alpha Tester's Perspective)

[Battlepaw 585]

For years I've been following this game, now I've decided to take a few weeks to do the alpha test.   I started with the release of the Archeum Pack, my best friend and I both bought the pack to play the game togather.   Anyways wanted to tell ya'll both the good and bad points I've encouterd

 

Background:

 

ArchAge is a Korean made MMO.   It is basicly a theme-parck style game with many sandbox elements. When Trion took over the devlopment for the North American version they started with an older version of the game then is in Korea, and are supposedly focused more on the sandbox elements of the game.  Hell they would have to from what I've seen, since its no shiner in the theme-park game department.   

 

So ArchAge is a sandbox?

 

Er, from what I've seen it is in some ways.  You can build houses in designated areas, but it does have the disadvantage of lackuster object based design,  and the housing areas are small plots of land zoned for it in each area.   You can't just build stuff anywhere.  You can plant trees, bushes and other resources anywhere but they can be stolen if not on your property.   On the northern continent you can build castles and guild properties, etc but few in the alpha, much less myself have gotten that far, so we don't know much about it.   

 

You can build underwater as well, at least you can build coral farms.  You can build on most of the islands, if you don't mind constant pvp.   I built my stuff in a warzone, partly because the whole server ran out of space in the course of a few day and I didn't mind constant warfare.    

 

The Pros of the Design:

 

The game is built along familar "safe" WoW lines, and the graphics aren't bad, it has what they call "mass apeal".   The quests are very very very generic and don't require an ounce of brainpower.   Its mostly go here do this or find this number of things, or kill this number of enemies, over and over and over again.   Not like Secret World, where the quests were often problem solver questions that stumped your avrage high school drop out.    

 

So, questing and leveling up isn't hard.  That's good since the best stuff is all pretty much opened up when you hit max level anyways.   The northern continent is all level 50 stuff, and so are most of the other things.   

 

Cons of the game design: The questing system is mind-numbing.  It doesn't feel fun or like anything you do matters. I generally don't read the quests I just hit accept, and go to the indicated quest marker on my map then glance at the quest bar, to see if I need to kill something or if I need to use an object, or gather a group of things. It is very rarely anything else.  I was surprised out of my stupor last night because I realized the quest actually wanted me to play rock, paper, scissors.  The level of innovation there astonished me.    

 

Most of the time you don't need to do anything, just talk to the next guy, its like a constant hide and seek game.  This is much diffrent then the last theme-park like MMO I played, Secret World, which had quests like that, yes but there were also a lot of problem solving quests, at least 4-5 per area.  They made ya stop and think and actually get into the whole athosphere of the game, and enjoy the game for what it was, unique rather then just "Get me 5 wolf tails"  

 

Ok now for the "Sandbox" Elements, both the pros and cons.  

 

There are a lot of things you can build, everything from ships, to vehicles.  Houses, farm tractors, gliders, etc.   The entire economy is mostly player driven.   The pros of this are some really nice co-op type farms that are shared between guild members.  The settings let you set them for family use or guild use, or private.   The graphics aren't bad especially the ships at sea are quite awesome to mess around with.  You can use the different objects on the ships such as the cannons, the sails, the harpoon guns, etc.   Even a breathing apparatus for breathing underwater and looking for treasure.   

 

The gliders deserve a whole page of their own on how awesome they are, a great way of getting around, and you can drop bombs on enemies with them at higher levels (though they don't really do damage)   There are some advanced gliders, but not many people have unlocked them yet.   You can climb a tall mountain then glide over a whole zone. Or you can do so, over a huge battle and watch from above as both armies smash against each other.

 

There are other vehicles I haven't gotten to yet, or tired out in some cases such as the submarines, siege equipment, etc.   There are race cars, of several different types and even a fishing ship.  

 

Anyways, the cons of this system:

 

First, like I said earlier, you have limited space to build. You can't just fly anywhere and build.   You have to cram your houses into "Housing areas" that get taken up very quickly.  Some are zoned for any type of construction, some for large houses, and some for just farms.  In all cases everyone tries to block off as much area as they can so you can't build. Much as like on the freedom servers in wurm players would fence in huge tracts of land.   

 

The issue is that each player can have up to 4 alts, and each of those alts can put down both a large farm, and a small garden.   You get a few players together and this adds up very quickly.   This is very disappointing, in a game that has massive tracts of land empty, except for mobs, etc, and tons of dead empty barren land between questing zones.   

 

Also, you can't modify the terrain.   It is a true theme-park, in that nothing you do actually modifys anythin of the basic land.   Questing, etc is all quite unaffected by winning wars, etc except that peace is declared for a few hours and there is no pvp in that area.   

 

Ok, now for the PvP.  I play on a pvp server in Wurm, on Chaos, so this naturally held much of my interest.   

 

The class system is actually quite interesting  You can pick three areas of specialty.  Those combinations can interact with each other in rather interesting ways, especially when you look at pvp.     The only problem with this kind of pvp is the CC, as you might have noticed from the Massively review I think ppl circulate around you are either a victum or an instigator.   

 

This means that the zerg is king, its mostly all about numbers when you get right down to it, unless everyone is level 50.    The only time I actually have fun in the PvP is 1v1 fighting, where I can actually take a player 20 levels over me and win if I play it right.   

 

The issue with the alpha test atm, is that all the promotion is being done on the East faction, in other words, not my faction.  I don't feel like the MR, when the JK were constantly outnumbering us 2:1, I feel like the HOTS guys do on Chaos, where you are outnumbered sometimes 10:1.  

 

The wars don't feel like wars, they feel like I'm just being farmed for my honor points.  I can fight as hard as I want, but there is no way my 30-40 players fighting on our side can fight 150-200 players on the enemy side.  Mostly I go, get my honor item for attending, then fly around the map, over the battles with my glider, and watch our guys get slaughtered, and try to bomb the enemy, or pick off stragglers.    

 

This isn't natural btw, its completely artificial, generated by the massive publicity of the official stream channels.    About 2/3 of the player base is on the other continent, in the other faction.   

 

However, it don't mean that pvp in general isn't enjoyable. This game is a theorycrafter's wet dream.  There are hundreds of different combinations of classes, weapon and armor types.    I went Battlerage (Heavy Melee), Defence (Tank) and Vitalism (Healer)  I have an immense amount of HP, and can pop off a heal ever few seconds, and in fact I get stronger the more damage I take.  A lot of times I'll actually let the ranged classes kite me around until my damage stack is fully charged then just unleash hell.  Its like the class built around nerd rage.    The only issue is that I'm slow, and I have no stealth, and have a hard time managing CC.  This gets me killed ALOT.   Especially when there are huge enemy armies, and you are acting like a commando, trying to pick off stragglers. 

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Well, if you liked WoW, or other games like it, this thing will be a very familiar game to you.  I've encountered a few other Wurm players since I started, and they have agreed  its almost laughable this is actually called a sandbox game in comparison to Wurm.  However, in comparison to most of the other MMOs out there, this game has it's own style and does allow a lot of freedom.    

 

It has as much grinding to it, as many other MMOs out there, and would be much better if the questing system had an ounce of thought or creativity behind it.   The world feels more artificial than real, in comparison, but then again I come from a game that the environment is part of you, and you are not just living there, but interacting with every hillside, etc.    

 

I don't think it has much of a future in the long run, but It is interesting to say the least.   I wouldn't mind knowing where Trion can take it but I won't cross my fingers. I did a lot of research into the issues the Korean server had, and I'm already seeing a lot of them in the Alpha,  What has gotten my interest is supposed servers where you can build anywhere.  I mean this game has a TON of unused space, in some rather interesting areas.   I wouldn't mind seeing what it can do.    

 

In the mean time I'll keep testing it, and get back to you on more stuff I uncover.   

[Zwei 210]

Nothing Korean can compare to wurm.

 

Just saying.

 

Wurm is Swedish, so its king of Sandbox.

 

/letroll

 

BUt yeah, I watched alot of Archeage gameplay, and just by the chatbox I could tell it would be a completely different game in terms of its own style on the sandbox. If you want true freedom, Wurm still reigns supreme.

[hoof2000 278]

how can a game be a sandbox game without any form of terraforming? i watched a couple vids on youtube and it is a typical korean mmo. definitely not my style of game. it looked promising at first 2 years ago, but now.. i won't even bother trying it. no terraforming, no gaming....at least not for me.

 

edit. oh and well written summary thumbs up for this 

Edited May 11, 2014 by hoof2000

[Battlepaw 585]

Well I think the orignal concept was to take any land and terraform it when your planting, etc it changes the terrain from what I gathered, following the game over the years, but the Korean devloper scrapped that and made the game pay to win.   

 

Its going to take a LOT of effort by Trion to try and salvage this gem.  Its a really rough gem, that right now is complete garbage, and has no chance of competeing with games like Darkfall, Rust, and DayZ , other sandbox titles already in North American release.  I'm enjoying myself somewhat as I discover what this game does have to offer.   

 

Its a good concept and a good start.  If Trion can work out the game-breaking problems with real-estate, etc it might just work.   There are a lot of "If"s and "Mabey" in any kind of hope I have for Wurm as well, so I guess I can try to see if it has a future.   The biggest problem I have atm is you can't really negotiate or convince neighbors to move if they don't want to, even in the PvP zone I live in, so there are no reasons to be polite to each other.   The community impacts of that kind of interaction are quite noticable.  For someone who has lived in MR for 5 years playing a sandbox where ppl work togather and are reasonably polite to each other every day, its a major turn off, but is expected.  I"ve played MMOs for nearly 2 decades now, and I've come to expect a lot of gamers to be anti-social, tribal minded, jerks unless you are "One of Them" This can even be true with many player on freedom much less Chaos.  Its just a major issue if your Faction in ArchAge is already outnumbered by the enemy, and your own facion dosen't want to work togather.     

 

I know many of my views are based upon my generally positive wurm experiences, so its going to take some getting used to.  It makes me remeber my Pre-Wurm days where I played GTA SA, on an RP server, when the community was made up of inmature jerks, unless you work in the Police Dept, where you had to use at least a bit of tact and politeness to even stay a cop for long.  

 

Wurm as a whole, at least for the long-term crafting that goes on in Chaos, and Freedom clusters tends to attract the older gamers, and vets who are good at working togher too, so that does make an impact.  

 

ArchAge also has its share of twinks/greifers, or people who don't really play the game they just find ways to annoy and troll other players.  Even in alpha, where that is actaully a positive thing, and we can find bugs by watching what ppl can do to exploit.    Some examples are raiseing/lowering the anchor on ships in non-pvp areas, you can kick players off your ship there as far as I know, just despawn and respawn your ship.  One player actually abused the report program to jail someone who was doing that, while that is abuse too, it is understandable, as its the only tool that player had to get the guy off his ship.    Overall it seems to be interesting to play the alpha, and learn what the game would be like during release.   I like launch experiences, in any game, and even with Secret World I loved playing during launch.   Even if you don't like many features of a game it is always a lot of fun.   

[theowl 9]

korea? Is this one of kimjununs projects?

[Battlepaw 585]

korea? Is this one of kimjununs projects?

 

South Korea.   They are like WoW Clone fanatics, and insane grinders.   Put it this way... just be glad there arn't any playing wurm they would be quite unstoppable.    

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

I bought the archeum pack a few weeks ago but still havent played it. This topic was a fun read tho and i hope i can see u around one day

[Kamill 61]

.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Kamill

[Battlepaw 585]

Which GTA server did you play on?

 

 SARP, was a pretty big RP server at the time, good following, not sure what happened to it now.   

 

 

I bought the archeum pack a few weeks ago but still havent played it. This topic was a fun read tho and i hope i can see u around one day

 

Heh, you missed the big land grab, er so did I for the most part.  Still plenty to do, just play as Elf/Nuian (West Faction)  Talk about underdogs... we do need all the help we can get.    

 

I've encountered a lot of oddball beta or alpha tests, but one where one faction is showered with publicity and gets so powerful it seriously disrupts trying to gauge how the game would normally work, that has never happened   

[Kamill 61]

.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Kamill

[Sevenless 385]

I've always felt Sandparks are giving Themepark players a taste of freedom, not giving Sandbox players a new genre.

 

Sandboxiness is a one way  XD

Edited May 12, 2014 by Sevenless

[Druidnature 1,118]

It's as I expected.

I thought it was going to be the next wow/gw2/war/rift/aion/swtor/enter next game here....

Seems I was right in that assumption, but it does look pretty good to be honest - may be worth a shot in the future.

I will miss the early stages of archeage though - being able to terraform/build everything everywhere. It looked awesome. :3

[Sevenless 385]

It's as I expected.

I thought it was going to be the next wow/gw2/war/rift/aion/swtor/enter next game here....

Seems I was right in that assumption, but it does look pretty good to be honest - may be worth a shot in the future.

I will miss the early stages of archeage though - being able to terraform/build everything everywhere. It looked awesome. :3

 

It seems like a much more toned down version of Darkfall, flaws included.

 

I'm intending to try it when it hit free mode.

[Battlepaw 585]

Tell me your IGN, now!

 

I was Melvin_Weaver back in the day Just a beat cop in SARP,     This was many many moons ago.   lol.    Much lulz to be had RPing a cynical ex-war vet cop with a mean streak.    

 

 

It seems like a much more toned down version of Darkfall, flaws included.

 

I'm intending to try it when it hit free mode.

 

 

Well one thing ya should know, unless you have patron status, meaning you have a sub to he game, you can't own a house, though you can use your guild's houses, farms, etc.  Also the Gliders, arguably the best part of the game will be subscriber only.    

 

Personally I think that's a mistake, since its going to be the sandbox elements that set the game apart for the other theme-park MMOs out there .   Basicly what Trion is going to do is pretty much take away the best parts of the sandbox experience unless you fork up 15$ a month.   Its not saying you still can't have fun, the game has many other elements that you don't have to pay for that are part of the massive open world.

[atazs 962]

Have anything to say about the crafting system? I've heard you are really restricted there 

[Battlepaw 585]

Depends on what part of the crafting system you mean.   In terms of crafting your own weapons/armor.  Well lets just say its not very inspired.  The stuff is very resource demanding, you make the next tier set out of your previous tier set, etc and etc.   The weapon crafting I think is probably nothing less then pure hell, since the only way I've found to level the thing is to actually make weapons, which is just an insane draw of materials, most of which can add up to be very expensive quickly.    In other ways though, you have a lot of freedom if you have a farm, aqua farm, house, etc since the crafting equipment can increase your level in a proficiency just by being around it.   Anyways, I've crafted three tiers of my plate armor, and it did feel like an accomplishment, and it has increased my survivability as a tank immensely compared to generic quest-given gear.   

 

Now the resources and crafting system isn't that bad if you have ways to make resources.  If you are a free-to-play it could be a pain, since you can't have a house of your own, etc.   You can use your guilds stuff, houses, etc and you also can plant crops, trees and stuff in unprotected areas and hope for the best, or defend it.  

Basicly its all recipe based crafting, you get the materials you need and you make the item.   Sometimes like I said, it needs the previous tier of the item, to take it up to the next level.  

 

There are a few nice things about tiering  up armor, sometimes if you have a decent metalworking level, you have a higher chance of making a rare, arcane, etc piece of gear, and there are benifits of having several arcane pieces of gear equipped, or I think for rare, etc for that matter.   You get additional buffs for that.   So basically, the auction house sees a LOT of traffic, as the game is very resource intensive.  

 

You also have Labor Points.   The way Labor points work is that every crafting/farming/mining action you do uses up labor points.  Once you are out of labor points you can't craft, mine, etc.  You generate labor points over time, and if you are a subscriber, you generate more.   The labor points are shared account wide, between all the characters.  As you do more crafting your available pool can increase up to 5000 labor points, this applies to any character on that account.  

 

I'm not sure what to make of this, normally I don't have a big problem getting done what i need to get done crafting/farming wise each day, despite this system, so I don't see it having a game-breaking impact.  I suppose it also encourages people to sub to multiple accounts, and also can cut down on free-to-play botters.    

 

What impact stuff you can get on the cash shop in the future is unknown.   Judgeing from the Korean version, which Trion is trying to distance itself from, the Cash shop can have a big impact on crafting, and is one of the major accusations of the pay-to-win system the Korean version is.  

 

In terms of the crafting system as a whole, Its not as innovative as Mortal-Online's crafting system, or as intensive as Wurms, but it seems to get the job done.    

Edited May 13, 2014 by Battlepaw

[Kamill 61]

.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Kamill

[Battlepaw 585]

Hmm Melvin does ring some bells, might be thinking of someone else though, way too many cops were always hanging around the PD. I too played around that time 2009ish (god I'm old) until it got overtaken.

On topic though, well written review. You should do more game reviews. The labor point thing sounds disturbing. I actually had that once in one of the many asian mmo's found on Steam, you could only do X crafting actions and even node/fishing collections per day. I don't see a point in that other than a cashcow considering you could buy labor point potions for cash. Something like that wouldn't be worth my time though and it sounds pretty prehistorical for a top upcoming game to be honest. =/ How's node collection in the game, did they learn from GW2 where they are shared or is it still the old WoW first to get there takes everything competition?

 

Ya, I'm worried about that too, my opinion isn't very high when dealing with cash-shop games ever since my very negative experience with Runes of Magic, where the cash shop basically was the game,you payed to win.   It was a pity because the quest system, and the class system as well as some aspects of the crafting system were rather interesting.    Its a classic example of what happens when a game developer gets too greedy.   Over the year or so I played Runes of Magic, I watched the cash shop get more and more intensive.   There was player housing in that game, but owning a house could run you over $50 a month alone, that's not counting all the stuff you had to buy to furnish the house, and your inventory was RENTED.... you also had to pay to get more inventory slots.   Almost every aspect of that game was affected by money, and the Quality of your experience was directly affected, by worries if you could afford the huge cost of haveing even a decent investment in the game.    

 

Wurm is also somewhat like that, but there are also trade offs for the way the system works here.   We don't so much have a cash-shop, but we still have a massive inflation problem, with in-game players trying to squeeze more and more money out of the game by selling as much as they can for euros.   This causes an impact on the quality of experience the average gamer can afford to invest in.   The good side is, at least the money goes as much to the players as to the devlopers, so that players can actually recoop some of their time they spend grinding in the form of RL money, or in the form of good stuff, they can improve their gameing experience with.    This is a much better situation then just pissing money at a greedy devloper, for no long term gains of your own other then just your daily gaming experience. 

 

What I'm worried most about with ArchAge, is that there is little in the way of long term goals for players in-game.   Sure you can be a pirate, own houses, build a massive guild, be the best you can be, but this is 2014... there are plenty of other games out there where you can play king of the mountain.  What I think many gamers are looking for is a way to make their mark, to build their experience outside the traditional boundaries of MMOs.  

 

This is why you see DayZ so popular, not because so much of trying to be the best, but trying to have fun, and that means memories of particular accomplishment as a survivor.  When you fall off a ladder, break your leg and have to craw through a zombie infested city, while bandits fight it out all around you, and you are trying to hide from any other player you see, you manage to find a dead body, inject yourself with morphine for the broken bone, pick up the guy's rifle, and fight your way through the city, you have an experience of accomplishment.     You survived, and you kicked butt, even in an unlikely situation.   The same is often true in wurm, where you work the land, and you turn a forest into a thriving community, or build a massive fortress city like Kratos on top of a mountain, and defend it from all comers.    

 

Games are our outlet, they provide a way to enjoy ourselves.  With many of us trying to make ends meet to begin with, being forced to pay for every part of a gaming experience doesn't have justification, it just turns us off from having fun and being able to enjoy ourselves.  Its the same thing about the price of Drake, and fighting on Chaos, where the worry about other players just trying to kill you to make a quick buck, or if you can afford to purchase a new set can impact how you play, and if you want to fight, and risk it, or break off and go back to your safe deeds.    

 

When you cant risk, or afford to risk, you can't utilize a game's full potential, even if the game is all about risk and reward.  There is always a balance, and having a cash shop in a game can throw that balance and it sacrifices the enjoyment of much of the game's population in favor of people who can afford all that the game has to offer, rather then just a small part of it, regardless of what type of time commitment they share with other gamers.    

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

Do u know if they will release a EU server too? Atm im playing with 130-180ms ping and this is terrible.

[Jeixi 146]

Nothing Korean can compare to wurm.

 

Just saying.

 

Wurm is Swedish, so its king of Sandbox.

 

/letroll

 

BUt yeah, I watched alot of Archeage gameplay, and just by the chatbox I could tell it would be a completely different game in terms of its own style on the sandbox. If you want true freedom, Wurm still reigns supreme.

 

Sorry, but Minecraft is the Swedish King of Sandboxes.... 

[Jeixi 146]

To the OP, thanks for the review. This is about what I expected Archeage to be like, and I probably won't bother with it.

[Archaegeo 136]

Its a sandpark, but a very enjoyable one.

 

They do need to fix same side ganking

[Lightonfoot 58]

Been wondering about this game. Thanks op. Your review gave me more insights.

 

And I learned some new vocabulary: sandpark.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Lightonfoot

[Battlepaw 585]

Its a sandpark, but a very enjoyable one.

 

They do need to fix same side ganking

Heh, just be glad you don't lose much being ganked, other than your pride most of the time.   I think the biggest issues with same side ganking is piracy, on the oceans, and I've found that sort of thing rather interesting.   What they need to work on is boat permissions a bit so ppl can't use parts on your boat in peaceful areas just to be trolls/greifers.   I can understand jumping on an enemy vessel in a war zone and dropping the anchor, but not in a peaceful area. The game isn't designed to be done solo, you need pp, LOTS of ppl to make decent trade runs. 

 

Same side ganking also allows a faction to self-regulate, like when some idiot jumped onto our boat with a trade pack, uninvited, and unwanted.   We told him to get off.  When he just ignored us,we then just sailed into the warzone, and ganked him.  That was his fault, not ours, and same-side ganking worked rather well there to great Darwinism effect.  You don't jump on a stranger's boat, in a game that thrives on pvp.    

[evilcherry 9]

South Korea.   They are like WoW Clone fanatics, and insane grinders.   Put it this way... just be glad there arn't any playing wurm they would be quite unstoppable.    

 

and I'm pretty sad that few Koreans are playing wurm. Even I'm not a big fan of Korean gamers, they at least provide a constant population at my hours.