MMORPG/ArcheAge

Anyone else interested in this? It's supposedly going to be released this year (at least its beta? idr) in English.

It's got ships, hang gliders, class variety many of which are useless, isn't pay to win even when it's free to play (although it did start as a game with a fee, I don't know if they're going to go straight for f2p or are going to try p2p the first time it shows up) supposedly is rather lore heavy for people into that kind of stuff, is rather easy to reach the maximum level, and you can be a pirate.

Like, a pirate pirate. The kind that is an actual criminal.

I'm definitely looking forward to this. Ships look fun to sail around in, and the world seems pretty big, and you can hunt for treasure at the bottom of the ocean, and carry packs of trade goods across the continents, and talk like a pirate, and other cool stuff.

Also, I really like character creation, and Archeage has that. This video (quickly) shows off the depth of the system, and it's also hilarious, so I'm just gonna leave it here:

Edit: Oh, and the western release is going straight to free-to-play. That too.

edited 7th Jul '14 8:50:42 PM by DinoTurtle

I'm kind of worried over how melee is the worst option out of the three categories(warriors, archers, and mages) though. Mostly since this is a PVP game, and while there are safe zones, I'm still worried over getting attacked without the option of retaliation. Especially when mages are currently the best and when heavy armor has low magical defense.

I don't think balance is going to be a big issue by the time the full release comes. I saw the announcement for the most recent patch on the official site and decided to look through the notes; the abilities of some of the skill sets were rebalanced, and the changes to battlerage (warrior skills) were mostly positive. There were a lot other changes too, and one of them was, in fact, that plate and cloth armor now have the same amount of magic defense. I don't have first hand experience so I can't say how much of a difference that update makes, but it seems like it's going in the right direction.

The first closed beta event has been announced to start on Thursday, July 17.

I signed up for beta, so I'm waiting to see if I get in. I just hope that my computer can run the game. I've heard that it's pretty well optimized, so hopefully there won't be a problem.

I'm more interested in how the game is supposed to be more player created, with castles, towns and most of the high level stuff made by the characters, so the game will actually change organically, where some players can be quest givers and such. Might be interesting if it works and it does provide a template for a different kind of MMO where the creators don't have such a firm grip on the events of the game, allowing real changes to take place that aren't just reset like in World of Warcraft and where players do more work than NP Cs

Can't say I remember anything about entire towns created by players.

I know you can have houses on actual land(therefore leading to the early bird's bonus) and I heard sieges cost something(I don't quite remember if the castle had to actually be built first, although IIRC you can take someone else's) but that's about it. Admittedly, that was quite a while ago.

How is there not a trope page for this game yet?

So, It's an okay mmo, at least the NA version, The neat stuff advertised, is really REALLY limited in accessibility, Land is outright camped. Crafting is gated behind huge resource (and labour, the classic facebook energy) sinks. PVP is Rocket-Tag Gameplay and PVE is just plain not there.

ugh

fucking glass cannons

(ironic given how my favorite fictional character ever is also one but yeah)

I hope those safe areas are still just as...well safe as they supposedly are in the original version

I really thought there would be PVE though, with things like bosses that actually require a team effort to beat

what about sea battles?

There's like, 5 dungeons right now of varying levels, World bosses haven't been released yet, outside of The Kraken.

Sea battles are typically fought in harbours because again Rocket-Tag Gameplay, He who ambushes wins. also because it's more viable to board your opponents ships and wreck them close up than it is to destroy the ships.

Safe areas are perfectly safe (Unless you go pirate) And pvp areas have peacetime (except the ocean)

PVE content is, again, light, because the version ported over to NA is far behind the Korean version. and the game has a strong PVP focus.

I disagree. Rocket-Tag Gameplay is not a bad thing as most competitive players add effective escape mechanics to their character skillset. Once you get focused, just jump back, teleport back or go into stealth (tho its the least reliable option). There is also several skill branches that greatly increase character survivability (they do hurt offensive capabilities though).

World bosses can be fun sometimes, though there is not a lot of strategy involved. At best it include 2 counter measures to boss gimmicks and sinking in lots and lots of DPS.

Safe areas are fun. It is hunting grounds for noob levels (up to 30) of respective faction. The guards will (with a few exceptions) attack invaders on sight and any character that belongs to the location also can attack the invader freely. Still it can be a great fun and/or profit to bring a ship full of goods to a safe zone of opponent faction because it is usually far less populated than pvp zones and there is less price demping involved. Or you can just go there to mess around, provoke the opposing faction and get their unique mounts.

Dungeons are somewhat challenging and fun, but the drop is fairly meh. And they are limited to 1-2 dungeons per 5-10 levels.

Gliders, ships and sport cars are great. Ships include boats (harpoon or 1 canon, very fast and affordable, 7k hp), trade ship (20 cells for goods, 1 cannon on each side, faster than a battleship, has a low range naval radar, 40k hp), battleship (slow, 4 cells for goods, 4 canons on each side, the slowest ship in the game, medium range radar. 50k hp) and flagship (VERY expensive, as fast as boats, long range radar, same firepower than a battleship, 70k hp). In my experience you can't win by boarding against a challenging opponent, the defenders have too much of an advantage. Even battleship is by far faster than a swimming character and can create antiglider shield for a limited amount of time. At the same time you need to balance your urge to have a large crew (and be nigh immune to boarding) and to have a lot of ships (they are not expensive and everyone can build a battleship of his own) and lots of guns. All in all large trade expeditions both by land and by sea is by far the best aspect of the game.

Sieges are very expensive. The item that allows you to besiege a castle goes to an auction for all the server to compete. Obviously, the largest guilds have an advantage and they pay a lot of money to get the item. On the other hand, there only limited number of characters allowed to participate in siege so weak in numbers but skilled guilds also have a chance.

Melee is a worst option in a m Pv P situation "Range blob vs Range blob", in sea battles and against certain raid bosses. In 1v1s, small scale Pv P, most PvE and blobs that have "rush groups" (aoe mages, tanks and said melee dd), melee character will do superbly well one-shotting pretty much every mage and archer they come along. The fact that 80% of melee fighters have Invisibility skill, 3-5 gaplosers and Lasso skill actually allows them to be half way useful even in range blobs. And in sea battles there are often vacancies on the canons.

edited 21st Nov '14 12:10:37 PM by Redrich