Arche Age

[luckton]

   Building a city and running and town and adventuring out with people and all that jazz is great on paper.  

The popular game with that mechanic is called Minecraft.

And for the amount of money one has to put in to play Minecraft, you get an equivalent experience.  These Ache Age chaps are under the assumption that a great number of people will pay $50+ up front for the box plus $15+ a month for an experience that we've already played, either cheaply (Minecraft) or reskined (EVE, SWG).  The former survives because it started free and got people interested, along with catering to what the people wanted.  The latter two are failing and failed because of low populations and poor dev teams unwilling to listen and adhere to their base.  Arche Age is clearly trying to fit itself in the category of the latter, and the record for the category is not good.

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't recall the business model being revealed yet. Not for eastern or western markets. They don't even have a western publisher yet. The game is also not very simmular to Eve or SWG. Granted its closer to SWG though, they use the term "Sandpark".

[Dark_MadMax]

We live in an era where people just don't have the time to commit to doing the long-grinding stuff for little personal return and the ever-present risk that it all can be destroyed in mere moments.  That's the instant turn-off for me.  Building a city and running and town and adventuring out with people and all that jazz is great on paper.  In reality, the open PvP mechanic is a blessing and a curse.  It's great for those who want the adventure and the excitement and open/free-willing play.  It's a curse that unless you can offer the gameplay to those who want nothing to do with PvP AT ALL, esp. non-consensual PvP, you will NEVER garner the amount of publicity, let alone the actual subscribers to make the game work the way the devs envision.

You seem have an axe to grind with pvp. Yes archeage has pvp. Its much in the same vain as DAOC afaik -dedicated pvp zones and safe zones.

People are smarter nowadays.  15+ million people cycled through 6+ years of WoW will do that, for better or worse.  They know more about what they want in game now than they did previously, and right now the way the game is portraying itself, it's EVE Online without spaceships.  When they change their tune and try to widen the base, they'll have my attention.

I dont see how playing same diku threadmill over and over again is "smarter". years of EQ, WOW, LoTRO, RIFT. Jeez I just don't get how people are not tired of this. I played RIFT for 2 months after 4 year break from themeparks, - no they are still the same. Same meaningless grinds for purples . zero community, zero "massive-multiplayer".  The sense of world which was present in first gen MMOs and in vanilla wow(pre-BG)  is completely gone now.  

[Lantyssa]

People aren't smarter.  There are just not that many interested in sandboxes, even here.

If the quality is good and the pricing model isn't stupid, I'll definitely be trying it out.  I don't expect to be bringing a lot of friends along.

[luckton]

Not against PvP outright, just the non-consensual variety.  If their 'safe-zones' are akin to EVE security status numbered zones, you're never truly safe, you're just secure in the fact that if you get ganked the person who ganked you has a pretty good chance to get ganked in return by the game.  Still doesn't make up for whatever was lost due to the ganking, insurance systems or not.

I suppose I am making one too many presumptions about the game at this point...but something tells me I'm not too far off-base.  Time will tell.

[Mrbloodworth]

I suppose I am making one too many presumptions about the game at this point

Yes.

[Speedy Cerviche]

People are giving way too much emphasis to "sandbox" and PvP buzz concepts.

Archeage looks like a really solid MMORPG that's trying to offer something more than your typical railed diku clone. In some ways it seems a lot like a mix between SWG and Shadowbane, but hopefully will not be an execution failure like those two games. The lead developer is Jake Song who cut his teeth on Lineage

The biggest "sandbox" elements seem to be a deep economic model, ability to build structures in most places of the world. The scary competitive open PvP area would be limited to one of three continents. There's also plenty of traditional questing and RPGing elements.

This is likely the best potential MMORPG of 2012 in my opinion.

[Lucas]

All aboard! (transportations)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6bt1iKL_po

[PalmTrees]

Ugh, that one legged, floppy eared mount reminded me of a gungan. What korean dev looked at Jar-Jar and said "Hey, I wanna ride that." ?

[Hawkbit]

Rule 34.

[Chimpy]

Ugh, that one legged, floppy eared mount reminded me of a gungan. What korean dev looked at Jar-Jar and said "Hey, I wanna ride that." ?

I saw nothing with less than 2 legs in that vid. 

[Lantyssa]

Ugh, that one legged, floppy eared mount reminded me of a gungan. What korean dev looked at Jar-Jar and said "Hey, I wanna ride that." ?

More like Falkor.

[Hawkbit]

Don't bring Falcor into this.

[LC]

Those gliders look somewhat familiar too.

[Lantyssa]

What an amazing catch.  I'm surprised no one's noticed that yet.

[Trippy]

 

[Lucas]

Closed Beta #4 will start on December 8th:

http://archeage-online.com/post/1718109315

May last up to 80 days; northern continent will be open for exploration and a new race will be playable, the Hariharan:

http://archeage-online.com/post/1718109326

[Dren]

What an amazing catch.  I'm surprised no one's noticed that yet.

Jeez, don't do that.  I read his link and thought it was a repeat topic.  Then you typed that and I thought maybe I was losing my mind fast.  I had to backtrack to make sure I was losing my mind at the usual pace. 

[Lantyssa]

Trippy's smiley should have been a hint.

[Lucas]

Brief interview with Jake Song:

http://www.betacake.net/2011/11/14/archeage-interview-with-jake-song/

[Draegan]

Oh look a new trailer?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76OKRhAYlm8&feature=player_embedded

Yeah. 

[Hawkbit]

It will likely be better than the raid encounters.

But yeah,  .

[Mrbloodworth]

Unlikely. Dungeon and bosses have looked rather impressive.

Anyway, Reminds me of a SWG Cantina.

[Kitsune]

How many dikus let you build a dance club?  Sort of a crappy dance club, but hey, it's fairly neat that such a thing's possible.  If it has decent gameplay to go with, it's already well ahead of Second Life.   

[ashrik]

I remember disliking that the bars in WAR never let you sit around and drink fake beers. Despite the techno dancing, I think there's a lot of good to be said about MMORPGs that let you simply exist in their world, doing stupid things of no importance. Which I'll grudgingly admit includes dancing at ye olde K-pop pub

[Lucas]

Ok, brace yourselves!

Here's a VERY informative, well-written and formatted review of Archeage in its current state. Every aspect of the game currently implemented is described, along with videos. Quite a long (but never boring, IMO) read.

http://archeagesource.com/topic/636-archeage-cbt4-review-and-extensive-game-info/

Among other features:

- FFA PvP
- Skill/level based hybrid leveling
- Sieges
- 8 races, each one with its own starting area
- Crime system (with jail breaking!)
- Family system
- Craft (and customize) houses, boats, capes and almost every other object in the game; grow a farm and modify the terrain (need to pay an upkeep)
- A lot of means of transportation

Like the reviewer says, CBT4 has 30% of the planned landmass, and from what he says, it's already quite huge; also on the plate: player-created faction system; hireable NPCs (labour work, vendors) and more.
---

You know, if it was your average unknown company of 3-4 individuals babbling something like that (like we witnessed in the past, especially at the beginning of '00) I would say "yeah right", but hey, this seems actually achievable, believe it or not.

It's my sandbox wet dream coming more and more true 

[Malakili]

The question is: How much grind.  All that is awesome, but if I have to chop wood for 3 hours to build a new chair for my house this is a non starter.  Minecraft has spoiled me to some extent with regards to being able to imagine something and see it realized in the game world relatively quickly.  I don't mind some slow resource collection and fabrication, but if I had to spend hundreds of hours to get to the good part, it just isn't going to happen at this point.  Maybe a few years ago it would have, but I don't know if I have it in me anymore.

edit: typo

[Mrbloodworth]

When you get a large enough group of players together all dancing, party lights appear out of nowhere.

HAHA!

[Draegan]

It's a very long review that my eye glazed over when I saw it yesterday.  It's not very in depth though, it's just a very detailed surface explanation of everything. 

It still screams Korean to me.  But like Malakili said: How much grind?  If I could worry more about where and how to build something rather than worrying about how many hours it takes to get enough wood, it might be fun.

[luckton]

Still continues to sound more and more like EVE -space +some DIKU.  The Korean aspect kinda turns me off as well.  If it's as grindy and dull as EVE, I'm not seeing the point.

[Mrbloodworth]

Archeage online pirate movie HD

[Gets]

In the second decade of our 21st century "How grindy?" is answered by "Can I bot?"

Ironically, if you can answer "Yes" to the latter it's generally not worth touching in the first place.

[ajax34i]

Regarding how grindy, the answer may be in the quests section:  they seem to only have fedex quests (which screams grindy to me).

[Malakili]

Regarding how grindy, the answer may be in the quests section:  they seem to only have fedex quests (which screams grindy to me).

It depends.  What I mean by grindy isn't whether or not they have interesting quests to do.  I don't mind having to go out and "find" the fun for myself, particularly when it comes to finding interesting places and fighting monsters.  I realize not everyone is on board with that idea and that questing has become the norm.  But I even had fun with the gameplay of something like Darkfall where my clan mates and I would just ride out and explore and find new places and kill the monsters there.  Stuff like, for example "Oh, we found some old ruins with a lot of undead, and they drop crafting components we are going to need, lets head over there."  And we'd go and clear out the ruins and chatter and I enjoyed that part of the game quite a lot.  It had very very few actual quests.

  What I *didn't* like about Darkfall is that skilling up (crafting or combat) took FOREVER.  Botting and AFK leveling of skills was common.  In Arche Age I'm much more concerned with it when it comes to the crafting system, particularly because the house, town and ship building stuff seems really awesome, but I don't want to have to AFK farm a tree for 3 hours a day for 3 weeks so I can finally build a little hut.

[Mrbloodworth]

ArcheAge Online Gameplay Mainstory Questing 1080p

I Don't think this answers the root question, but it does seem like there is some interesting questing to be had. This game is promoted as a hybrid sandbox/guided experience AKA: Sandpark. There is a main quest line, and standard quests all around the world it seems. But you don't have to do them, likewise it seems you don't have to play in the sandbox ether. Basically, if you like to quest, do so, if you don't, you can skip it and just play in the sand, or do both whatever suits you at the time. From what I understand, there are no content gates anywhere attached to quests ( IE: kill/fetch X to enter next zone ).

*Shrug*

"Grindy" is subjective, unless its out right punitive by design, and there is no mistaking that. However, I don't think requiring a great deal of wood to build a 3 mast sailing vessel is "grindy". Others may I guess.


Games like Sword of the new world (Granado Espada)? That's grindy, by design.