Arche Age

[Ginaz]

Yeah, I should have mentioned the escalating danger levels.  The map tells you what state each region is in and for how long.  Make note of when a region is at peace so you can quest there without fearof getting ganked.

[Ginaz]

So, much shorter ques today and I was able to get a few cross continent trade runs done.  I also found my nemesis in this game...sea bugs.

[Falconeer]

Not the jellyfish? Sea bugs are standing still, they can be avoided. But the DAMN JELLYFISH?!

[Ginaz]

Not the jellyfish? Sea bugs are standing still, they can be avoided. But the DAMN JELLYFISH?!

I got jacked by about 5 sea bugs while I was carrying a trade pack.  It dropped to the bottom of the ocean floor but luckily a guild member helped me get it back and complete the run.  I felt like a total noob, though.

[WayAbvPar]

Speaking of help from guildies- I was dropping off what I thought was the 3rd necessary stone trade pack at my cottage. Imagine my surprise when it told me I needed lumber instead. So I hoofed it back to town, found a nice guildie to hold it for me, made a lumber pack, finished my cottage, then went back and had the guildie follow me to my house, where we discovered you can't drop trade packs. Was trying to sell it to someone in the guild when another person explained that you could actually disassemble a trade pack (albeit at a 10% loss) 

This game is grindy as fuck, but I really love it anyway. Maybe because the sense of accomplishment is heightened when I do reach a goal. There are some many things to do that I set little goals for myself. Next 3 on my list- fishing, glider quests, and then working on the trade pack stuff. Also leveling when I need to regen labor points 

[Falconeer]

It's funny becayse everything is grindy except leveling up. I mean, the combat. That part is a breeze and getting to 50 is super fast. Everything else? Labor hell.

[rk47]

So I load this up today and seeing the new player zone I just said no nope nope, no thanks.


welcome to 2004
I don't wanna deal with this shit in 2014.

[Ginaz]

Speaking of help from guildies- I was dropping off what I thought was the 3rd necessary stone trade pack at my cottage. Imagine my surprise when it told me I needed lumber instead. So I hoofed it back to town, found a nice guildie to hold it for me, made a lumber pack, finished my cottage, then went back and had the guildie follow me to my house, where we discovered you can't drop trade packs. Was trying to sell it to someone in the guild when another person explained that you could actually disassemble a trade pack (albeit at a 10% loss) 

This game is grindy as fuck, but I really love it anyway. Maybe because the sense of accomplishment is heightened when I do reach a goal. There are some many things to do that I set little goals for myself. Next 3 on my list- fishing, glider quests, and then working on the trade pack stuff. Also leveling when I need to regen labor points 

There is a drop pack ability.  I know this because I dropped mine on my farm and left it there overnight and the guildie that helped me dropped it on his clipper for me to pick up.

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah, but it wouldn't let me drop it in my cottage. I could do it outside, but I don't think it is protected (although it is on farms I think?). Might have to test it.

[palmer_eldritch]

Yeah, but it wouldn't let me drop it in my cottage. I could do it outside, but I don't think it is protected (although it is on farms I think?). Might have to test it.

You can drop stuff outside your cottage safely (assuming we are talking about a cottage which has actually been built). You can also plant things safely outside your cottage, although you only get a fairly small amount of farming space with a normal cottage.

If you try to plant something, the boundary of the land should appear on your screen. I don't think it actually shows this when you place a pack, but you can always buy a single seed and right click it as if you're going to plant it, and then you'll see the boundaries.

There's then some kind of time limit with the packs only being safe for four days or something, but you can just pick them up and put them down again to reset the timer.

[Viin]

So I load this up today and seeing the new player zone I just said no nope nope, no thanks.

welcome to 2004
I don't wanna deal with this shit in 2014.

Sissy. It's not that bad away from the first areas. Though there are some pockets with lots of people, it has rarely interfered wugh anything I needed to do for a quest.

[WayAbvPar]

So I load this up today and seeing the new player zone I just said no nope nope, no thanks.

welcome to 2004
I don't wanna deal with this shit in 2014.

Sissy. It's not that bad away from the first areas. Though there are some pockets with lots of people, it has rarely interfered wugh anything I needed to do for a quest.

OK- that sounds like what I figured it would be, but I didn't want to risk it (godDAMN was I sick of mining!). Good to know.

[Pendan]

Is an exploit that lets spammers send out messages from fake names. Guy has taken over most all channels for last 15 minutes sending many messages a second. When I play a game that has been released for more than a year in other countries I expect these kind of things to have been fixed. Even on a real name they let you send out messages way too fast.

[WayAbvPar]

Lesson #1 in MMOs: turn off any sort of unfiltered global or zone chat before you do ANYTHING else.

[Ginaz]

Yeah, but it wouldn't let me drop it in my cottage. I could do it outside, but I don't think it is protected (although it is on farms I think?). Might have to test it.

It's protected if its inside the boundary of your property.  Not sure for how long or what build state your land has to be in but I put my pack on top of the scarecrow and left it there overnight.

[Abelian75]

I have to say, I'm really enjoying this a lot more than I expected.  The labor stuff isn't nearly as punishing as I expected.  I managed to complete the large scarecrow questline without being in a guild.  Took a ride with someone who I was 90% certain was going to murder me, but miraculously they were just being nice and didn't even ask for money!  Then we both got murdered, but after we completed the quest, so it's all good.

Anyway, I finished building my house and am waiting until some of the in-construction houses around me expire this weekend to hopefully plot my farm down.  Still level 26 I think.  Or 27?  Something like that.  I dunno, I'm mostly just gathering and crafting stuff.  When I want to kill stuff real good I play Destiny.

[Mithas]

This game sounds fun to me, but I just don't think I have the time. I barely had enough time to get anything done properly in WoW. Is there any hope of a casual actually being able to do anything fun/meaningful in this game?

[satael]

I'm also enjoying this though I haven't read any quest texts after the start due to the horrid writing (atleast that little I did read was pretty bad). The game reminds me somewhat of UO and SWG with crafting and openworld pvp and housing being prominent (though so's grinding as you'd expect from a Korean mmo but that hasn't hit me yet since I'm still leveling).   

[Falconeer]

The thing is... if no one tells you to expect UO and SWG, you are absolutely gonna feel that vibe and probably appreciate it. If someone tells you that the game reminds them of SWG and UO before you try it, chances are you are gonna hate it. As usual, expectations set a lot of bars. As said multiple times, your first few hours in the game are probably gonna be a huge let down unless your standards are pretty low. But this is an onion, lots and lots of layers.

[Viin]

Good point. I had no idea what kind of game AA was until I installed it and started playing. With no preconceived expectations, it's been fun so far. I can see it getting old unless pvp turns out to be a lot of fun.

[Pennilenko]

Good point. I had no idea what kind of game AA was until I installed it and started playing. With no preconceived expectations, it's been fun so far. I can see it getting old unless pvp turns out to be a lot of fun.

As a group pvp is amazing. One versus one is a different story. There are a handful of builds that are amazingly hard to deal with one on one depending on your own build. I am not unsatisfied by this though, since most of the builds have viable counters, no single build is strong against the rest.

Also holy shit is this game grindy. Which is fine also because I plan on playing it for a long period of time.

[Falconeer]

Grindy? This is really surprising to me. You don't mean leveling up to 50, right? Cause everything else is grindy. The crafting is grindy, the growing, the commerce, the husbandry stuff, building and acquiring boats and houses, that stuff is grindy. But leveling to 50 takes about ten days of almost casual play (half if you have done it before) and there's not a single way to run out of quests so I'd assume that's not what you meant.

[Pennilenko]

Grindy? This is really surprising to me. You don't mean leveling up to 50, right? Cause everything else is grindy. The crafting is grindy, the growing, the commerce, the husbandry stuff, building and acquiring boats and houses, that stuff is grindy. But leveling to 50 takes about ten days of almost casual play (half if you have done it before) and there's not a single way to run out of quests so I'd assume that's not what you meant.

I was not talking about the leveling hehe. I was 50 in the first three days, and that was with queue times. I'm talking about the rest of the game.

[Xanthippe]

By grindy, do you mean sticky?

Grindy is not fun, but sticky is.

[Paelos]

Is it like SWG style crafting or something else?

[Evildrider]

Is it like SWG style crafting or something else?

If you liked being a crafter in SWG, and I mean.. one of those guys that woke up and did harvester runs for 3 hours, then crafted for 3 hours.. finally had breakfast, before filling your vendors and then going out to do more harvesters.. then yes.. You will like it.  :) 

*I was one of those guys but I am older now, have somewhat of a life, and much lazier.   

[Lantyssa]

SWG crafting was only amazing because of the variable resource qualities and experimentation.  You had to take trade-offs on most items, and those trade-offs mattered.

[tmp]

Yeah, I don't see Arche Age crafting to be anywhere near that complexity.

[Falconeer]

ArcheAge complexity is more in the procurement of the sheer amount of different ingredients and the interdependency between crafters, than the actual crafting. The focus is on the gathering part. So while interesting, crucial (because the best equipment is all crafted), and with a mechanic that enhances the whole SWG's "check and refuel your harvesters before the timer expires", the actual crafting doesn't seem to have much in common with SWG's.

[Lantyssa]

The actual acquisition of resources was the least fun part of the SWG system.

Scouting for them?  Fun.  Balancing attributes?  Fun.  Getting paid millions of spacebux because I made the best BE tissues on the server?  Fun.  Running a mining/harvesting operation?  Not for most people.

At least with a lot of my stuff I could hunt for it instead of making harvester runs.  That only made it tolerable, and even then I hung up my BE hat after a few months and enough money to pay my housing costs for eternity.

[Paelos]

The actual acquisition of resources was the least fun part of the SWG system.

Scouting for them?  Fun.  Balancing attributes?  Fun.  Getting paid millions of spacebux because I made the best BE tissues on the server?  Fun.  Running a mining/harvesting operation?  Not for most people.

At least with a lot of my stuff I could hunt for it instead of making harvester runs.  That only made it tolerable, and even then I hung up my BE hat after a few months and enough money to pay my housing costs for eternity.

I ran a mining operation. I'm not most people apparently.

[palmer_eldritch]

Guilds are good in this game. By working together our guild has managed to buy a bigger boat.

[Falconeer]

Hey, I was possibly the first Master Tailor on my server when SWG came out. I made so much money by selling what I advertised as the "Smock of Morpheus from The Matrix" that I actually sold some on eBay. I had so many back orders that for the first month I couldn't go out adventuring a single time and I literally played the job of a merchant, from resource acquisition to retail, including PR and marketing. I had LOTS of fun, until I realized it was a second job and I quit. This just to say that I know what we are talking about, and I agree with you 100%. And that's why I said ArcheAge is nothing like SWG.

This doesn't change the fact that there's fun to be had in the mechnics of the crafting and economy of ArcheAge if you are that type of person. Isn't that always the case? Is there fun to be had in the LOOT CAVE of Destiny? Sure, if you are that type of person...

[Pagz]

Guilds are good in this game. By working together our guild has managed to buy a bigger boat.

It's the donkey that makes it.

[Trippy]

The actual acquisition of resources was the least fun part of the SWG system.

Scouting for them?  Fun.  Balancing attributes?  Fun.  Getting paid millions of spacebux because I made the best BE tissues on the server?  Fun.  Running a mining/harvesting operation?  Not for most people.

At least with a lot of my stuff I could hunt for it instead of making harvester runs.  That only made it tolerable, and even then I hung up my BE hat after a few months and enough money to pay my housing costs for eternity.

I ran a mining operation. I'm not most people apparently.

You are an accountant. It's all spreadsheets to you.