Arche Age

[palmer_eldritch]

Trion explained a while back that they had to work with XL Games to do the localisation - it's more than just translating text, it involves actually doing stuff to the code so they need to work with the devs - and for whatever reason XL Games could only work on one localisation project at a time. And Japan and Russia were ahead of the queue, so North America/Europe just has to wait...

[Falconeer]

It's incredible how long it took for this to get localised, and it's only still in alpha! I would agree that it is definitely too late, but at the same time Hartsman doesn't seem stupid enough to keep up with a dying horse, and at the same time this could mean that the game will release with tons of content and lots of fixes tailored for Westerners.

[Lantyssa]

It'll appeal to a different audience than the other big MMOs coming out.  EQ Next is going to be it's closest competitor.

[Nevermore]

You know, this whole time I thought the title was Archie Age and it was an MMO about Betty, Veronica and Jughead.

[Lantyssa]

Hahaha.  Dibs on Sabrina!

[palmer_eldritch]

It'll appeal to a different audience than the other big MMOs coming out.  EQ Next is going to be it's closest competitor.

I think that's right, and although people are already playing EQN Landmark, we still have no idea when EQ Next itself will be out. I'd guess at least a year from now.

[Lucas]

New blog post (21st February), called "To Seoul and Back Again":

https://www.archeagegame.com/en/news/2014/02/to-seoul-and-back-again/

[LC]

Translated interview with Jake Song

Best part:

MMOZG.net: And the last question as there's no more time left. Let's talk about localization. There are no any news about western localization. Can you tell something about your work with Trion?

Jake Song: Well... (long pause) We may launch it with Trion this year. (pause) I hope.

[Hawkbit]

I hope.

Do I hear an investment opportunity knocking?

[Draegan]

Hartsman just got back from Korea doing a bunch of meetings. Interesting.

[palmer_eldritch]

By the way, the Russian version of this game is available to play now for free, if anyone's interested enough give it a go.

There's quite a nice guide to making an account here:

http://www.mmocast.com/featured/archeage-ru-account-registration-guide-english-patch

Making an account

It's very easy if you use a browser that translates web pages (eg Chrome). Basically, the game in Russia is run by mail.ru. First, you need to get yourself one of their webmail addresses from this site here: http://mail.ru/ . The register button is in the top right.

Then you go to aa.mail.ru and use the webmail address you just made to create an account.

Downloading the game

Download the game here: http://aa.mail.ru/download

The English language patch

There is an English language patch that someone made, which is a little hard to find as someone (presumably Trion) got upset and told the authors to delete the posts they had made on various message boards about it.

However, you can get the patch from here: https://mega.co.nz/#!90NlHBIK!m54fO9jTqK-MyRBCL-KhbVLynIwdxMLoLlPaMeEIwG4

I make no guarantees about this patch and if it steals your bank account details and gives it to the Russian mafia then don't blame me. For what it's worth, I am running the patch right now and it works just fine (the translation is awful but it lets you play the game).

NB, to make the patch work you will probably need to open up the file you have just downloaded called "patch", which is a Windows Batch File, and change the directory path so that it points at your Archeage game file.

Here, I open up the folder I have just downloaded, right click the file called "patch" and open it up in a text editor:


Then I edit the file so it points at my ArcheAge PAK file.


After that, you double click the file called "patch" to run it, and it edits your ArcheAge to swop out a lot of the Russian text for English text.



Of course, you can always skip the patch and just play in Russian if you prefer.

Choosing a server

There are two servers with significant English-speaking and European (French and German speaking) populations: Джин and ТАЯН. The bad news is that those servers are full and it's not possible to create new characters on them for now. Also Джин has hour-long queues even for those people who already made characters.

Also, the game is officially currently in open beta, but it's one of those open betas where there won't be a wipe and there's no apparent difference between open beta and release. They even have the cash shop up and running and taking money already. So it's basically released.

Free to play

The game is free and allows you to buy stuff from the cash shop. You can also pay a sub to become a premium member, which means you get an extra 10% xp on everything and - the main benefit - much faster renewal of your labor points. Labor points are expended in crafting (which includes things like planting crops, feeding your pet chickens etc). So if you want to craft or get into farming or housing in a big way, you need to go premium.

I won't explain how to do that here as I bet very frew people will want to buy a premium account on Russian servers but, for anyone who does, here is a guide to buying in-game currency - used to buy a premium account - via paypal. http://archeagesource.com/topic/2531-guide-if-you-have-any-difficulties-in-purchasing-crystals-for-aa-early-access-from-mailru-main-website/ . Just in case you don't fancy handing over your credit card details.

Building a character

Here is a skills calculator for ArcheAge: http://archeage-impact.de/index.php?site=talentplaner_eng&action=jumpIn

The game allows you to choose three classes and then to mix and match skills from each class, so the calculator can be pretty handy.

[Falconeer]

There's hope! English version showcasted by Trion at GDC. Here's a 25 minutes demo video.

[HaemishM]

I skimmed through it and it looked really cool. The telling bit will be just how grindy it is.

[Draegan]

I just got access to this today. I might even try to stream it for shits and giggles.

[palmer_eldritch]

A bit more hype, this time showing the different regions of the game, with different themes and architectural styles. There's a CGI trailer at the start but after that you get to the actual in-game graphics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awHbWbM8Yac

[Nonentity]

I just got access to this today. I might even try to stream it for shits and giggles.

The US version? That's hopeful.

[Draegan]

I just got access to this today. I might even try to stream it for shits and giggles.

The US version? That's hopeful.

Yup US version is up and running without a hitch from the little I played it.

[palmer_eldritch]

I made a little film with some information about this game based on my time playing the Russian version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBN1yCXGnXU

[Draegan]

I'm streaming here if anyone wants to watch: http://www.twitch.tv/draegan101

[Falconeer]

I didn't know this: for combat classes Archeage uses a system not so different from the other Trion MMO, Rift. In fact it's pretty much the same thing, except there's even more soul trees you can combine together, for a whopping "121 uniquely named combinations".

Your Class is composed of three Skillsets chosen out of a possible ten. There are no restrictions on which Skillsets can be paired with each other, resulting in 120 uniquely-named Class combinations of varying functionality (and efficacy). Want some bard skills alongside your dual-wield melee and your archery? There’s a name for that: Bloodskald.

Here's the full article. What can I say? Considering Rift was hell to balance (and TESO is equally broken, with less combinations), I am not expecting PvP to make any kind of sense in this game.

[Draegan]

Class system is pretty much what Rift should of been, but it's not as vertical. You can look up a class builder, but you have like 25 points, three classes and you can put points where you want. A lot of the abilities are on 10-60 second cooldowns so it's not spammy like Rift.

You essentially work off of combos. Other than that, the game is a standard tab target combat system of boring. The underlying sandbox nature of this game will truly be fun to play.

[Count Nerfedalot]

So lets see if I can correctly summarize 4 years of infrequent and incomplete info:
Open world Pvp
Quests and quest hubs
Significant level-dependent power differentials
Flexible character development
Pretty graphics
Long grind?
Complex and significant crafting
Safe housing/farms
Unsafe resource gathering/transport

Sounds kinda like EVE without the SPAAAACE but with panties?

Or am I missing something?

[palmer_eldritch]

Looks fair, although it doesn't quite reach the same level of sandbox open-worldyness as Eve, and it's not as brutal (all your gear doesn't get blown up when you die) although it can be pretty brutal (you can push people off airships and when they fall to their death, you swoop down on your glider and pick up the trade package they were trying to transport, hahahaa!!).

Worth noting it has its own version of 0.0, which is called Auroria, commonly known as the northern continent. This is where guilds can own territory. Although there is open-world PvP elsewhere too.

[Draegan]

So lets see if I can correctly summarize 4 years of infrequent and incomplete info:
Open world Pvp
Quests and quest hubs
Significant level-dependent power differentials
Flexible character development
Pretty graphics
Long grind?
Complex and significant crafting
Safe housing/farms
Unsafe resource gathering/transport

Sounds kinda like EVE without the SPAAAACE but with panties?

Or am I missing something?

Very short grind. The game really throws experience at you all over the place. Crafting, building, trading, whatever. It's pretty easy to level 3 classes up to 50. The grind is if you want additional classes at max level. Respecing and switching is very cheap to do, but when you swap in a new class, it will be level 10. It's kind of like FFXI(V).

Level differential is not necessarily a big problem. You can use better play or numbers to win.

Farming Housing etc can be very safe or very dangerous. It depends on where you put stuff.

[Count Nerfedalot]

OK, thanks for the replies!  It's definitely not for me, but yall have fun and post your war stories and I'll enjoy kibbitzing from the sidelines.     

[Draive]

I've been playing AA over a year ( KR then RU and now US Alpha ) and I can say that there is no grind at all for the first 50 levels. On my third toon, I hit 21 in one day and 50 in less than 2 weeks. This allows you to be pvp viable assuming you have half-ass decent gear.

As someone else mentioned, the grind comes in when you decide to level up more than 3 skill sets on a character. The reason being is that you gain most of your exp from quests and since you have gone through the quest line on your first 3 skillsets you are only level with mobs and crafting to raise the next 3.

[Stormwaltz]

The inevitable "buy into alpha" just went up.

https://archeage.trionworlds.com/account/profile/manage-game!input.action?dd=1

[Njal]

Quick, somebody talk me out of this. I have $600 in my gaming account and a strange desire to get the alpha founders pack. 

[luckton]

Quick, somebody talk me out of this. I have $600 in my gaming account and a strange desire to get the alpha founders pack. 

Have you ever played EVE, and if so, did you enjoy it?  Now take away the ships and space, replace them with Lineage-style Korean grind fest, and you have Arche Age.  If that appeals to you, then take that money and watch it burn 

[palmer_eldritch]

It isn't a grind-fest. I think people just assume it must be because it's Korean, but if you actually play the game you'll find it's not.

You can also level all the way up just by crafting and farming, if that's your thing. But if you concentrate on quests then it's no more grindy than the average western MMO. Levelling is actually quite fast.

I would obviously not recommend spending $150 on getting into an alpha (for info, I already got into the alpha for free) but you will see if you look at the offer that this includes a three-month sub to the game and $75 to spend in the cash shop, so it's not a terrible deal for anyone who is pretty sure they want to play ArcheAge in the long term.

There are also cheaper founders packs but they don't include alpha access - only access to beta "events" which will last a few days at a time. What every pack does include is a four-day head-start on the live server.

Perhaps just as important is that Trion have confirmed what the payment model for the game will be once it is live:

You can buy "patron" status, ie a premium account, for $15 a month, and you need patron status to own land (specifically, to pay for the upkeep of land) for your house or farm. However, you can sell patron tokens in-game to other players for in-game gold, so in theory you could actually have a premium account without ever paying real money for it. In other words, it's like plexes in Eve or Krono in EQ2, and I believe they also have something similar in Rift.

Note that you can actually get by without owning land in ArcheAge if you have no interest in crafting or farming. You can also use a friend's house or farmland if they have patron status and you don't, although there are a very small number of things in the game that you actually need to own your own a house for. For example, you can place an item in a house which gives you a crafting bonus, but that only works for the house owner.

So I reckon you could see most of what this game offers without paying anything, if you can wait until release.

[Scold]

Um, how important is a +3 to all stats title? If the other guy is at cap on a stat and I'm at Cap+3, how much of an edge do I have?

Edit: nevermind, on the official forums they say you get PvP titles that give like +32 to all stats, so +3 is pretty meaningless at endgame. I'm cool with that.

Just bought the $100 package, feels reasonable for a game I've been anticipating for years, especially since it has $80 of ingame currency and subscriber time.

[Lantyssa]

I really want to play it before putting down money, even if it's something I'm looking forward to.  That's what I hate about these founder's packs.

[Rendakor]

I would have been all over this if it released a week or so ago. I'm not dropping a ton of money for an alpha when I've already got Hex.

[Threash]

Subscriber time? they are charging a sub?

[palmer_eldritch]

Subscriber time? they are charging a sub?

The sub == patron status. If you don't need patron status then it's free.