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First impressions of Japanese archeage
So I have played Archeage up to level 11 in the Japanese retail game. Note that I don't read or speak any Japanese at all, so my impressions are limited by ability to navigate the world without being able to read anything. Also, because I am low level I haven't seen any PvP and wouldn't be able to get to the PvP island since I need to do some quests that require reading (I think...).
My own expectations of the game from reading various forums seem quite far off the mark. I expected a hardcore game like shadowbane or darkfall or maybe AoC, but I think this game seems much more like Final Fantasy. In fact I think it is fair to say that this game is what I had expected Final Fantasy XIV to be like before its initial launch disappointed. ( I never played Lineage so I cannot compare to it.)
PROS:
Class/ability system is really cool. This is the highlight of the game for me because it really gives you the ability to customize your characters skills the way you want like no other MMO does.
Stable. I have never crashed (except for my laptop overheating) or had really any glitches or even lag.
Crafting. Much more careful attention has been put into the animations and such going into gather skills and crafting. The fishing looks so good that part could be a stand-alone fishing simulator.
CONS:
Graphics are not very good. This was a major surprise to me given the talk about how good the game looks and the fact that it is on Cry-Engine 3. This game has really old-school style graphics, and is not close to for example Guildwars or even Neverwinter in quality. It certainly seems to me that some of the videos people have made are designed to highlight the best areas but do not really represent the average look of the game. Probably the biggest single issue is the lack of grass and bushes in the right places. The ground is just texture mapped and in a very few areas you will see grass blades. Trees are haphazardly distributed and very low polygon, just a cylinder with texture mapped planes criss-crossing. There is non-natural aesthetic to the placement of objects. It seems very much like objects like houses and barns were drawn by graphics artists, but then plopped into the world by programmers with no artist's eye. Also, mobs are just standing in random places around in fields; there is no rhyme nor reason to why they would be standing around in fields like that.
Combat is old-school everquest style. This is mostly stand-still and do skill rotations. So mostly what I spent my time doing is tabbing to a mob, spamming my range skills until it reaches me, and then using my melee weapon to do the coup-de-grace. I have spent some time kiting and moving around, but without a dodge mechanic like GW2 or Neverwinter, it feels really slow and quite frankly, OLD.
Effeminate. The very first impression of this game for me was that it was extremely emasculated. The language most gamers would use might not be allowed on these forms.
Small World. I only explored one of the 3 'continents' its true, but I know that the eastern and western continents are similar, so unless the north island is vastly larger than what is represented on the maps, this game is tiny. It seems quaint, not epic in size to me.
Comments
As i am not on Japanese beta, anyone else has something to add here ?
are the graphics on the level with minecraft ? Because i dont care about graphics and if they as good as minecraft then i take em..gameplay > graphics anytime.
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OP can I ask why you're playing Archeage when you obviously love 'action 1 hotbar faceroll combat' ? and why are you not still playing these games GW2 & NW? Are they boring already? Not been out too long yet have they?Maybe they are OLD already?
Please help me understand this. Also are you sure the graphic settings on your lap top were on the lowest setting seeing you already stated it was crashing due to overheating?
I am playing archeage so I can learn to faceroll in archeage. I like face rolling
I do still play Neverwinter every day; I have done so since the alpha and so yes I am getting somewhat weary of it. I am under NDA for at least one game.
Now, I have a sad thing to admit here: I have a one-button keyboard macro for playing my toon in Archeage. This macro plays optimally for this combination specific build. What is that macro? Why, it is 12345678 <repeat>. Yup, literally a faceroll macro! I am already using most of the skills I have planned at 50, and this macro will continue to work. So archeage doesn't really stand out in this area.
I keep my laptop on a cube of ice so I can play on high settings. It overheats when the ice cube melts. (Sadly, my desktop machine literally melted when the liquid-cooler failed, I just sent it back to the manufacturer for repair.)
My problem with the graphics in archeage isn't that the polygons aren't being rendered fancy, its that the graphics design is not very good in most of the world. There are places that do look good, and you will see those in many of the videos you see.
Also don't take criticism as only negativity, I had a PRO section too! I have not decided if I will ask my guild to go the archeage yet. I do think that the current hype in these forums and others misrepresent what the game is about. I actually believe that people reading this will have a better chance of liking Archeage when they actually play it since this thread (hopefully) sets their expectations a bit closer to reality.
Why posters like this feel compelled to review a game after a whooping 11 levels and expect ANYONE to take anything away from your experience is misguided and rediculous. At that level you can't have possibly experienced ANYTHING that makes AA unique. Sounds like to me you came to AA from themeparks, played it like one, then turned around and condemned it as one. Did you build a house, do you have a ship, did you do any trading, grow crops, build vehicles, attempt treasure hunting? Did you step foot into the oceans, the easterm, western, or norhern cont? I am guessing no to all of these. So in turn you have no right painting any picture at all about AA not to mention a fail review. Plus anyone who has done any level of research would know AA is a tab target game, so that should not have been any surprise nor informational or useful to anyone here. How about talking about the sandbox features you seemed to skip in favor of comparing themepark features and action combat.
What I find most funny is you stating it is a small world. How much of the world could you have possibly seen at 11 to come to that conclusion? Considering the overwhelming majority of those whom have experienced AA usually state the gigantic world as one of it's shining features.
My advise to all is to do your own research, watch the countless youtube videos or streams on AA. Draw your own conclusions and I can guarantee most of you will find out how wrong the OP is by just looking for yourselves.
Well, the title of the post is "first impressions". If I had done every last possible thing in the game it would no longer be a first impression. I did however run to all points on the island before I made this review.
Rather than watching videos of the game, anyone can do exactly what I did and actually go play the game and see for themselves.
Quite frankly, you guys seem angry. I assure you I am not the one who pissed in your cheerios.
Also, the word is spelled 'Ridiculous'. No 'e'. Pet peeve of mine.
Arche Age has been hyped as the the great sandbox hope for the past couple years by people who have not played the game.
So, your impressions of actually playing the game are not aligning with their hyped up pre-conceived notions of the game.
Graphics....everyone has their own taste.Nothing to discuss here.
Combat...could of watched some of the many youtube vids to see if they like/dislike.
And the fact that the game was in a language that the OP does not understand has a lot to do with him not enjoying the game.
No.
There is nothing pre-conceived about it. There are tons of people already playing AA, reached max level and have months of playtime under their belt. There are streams for AA just about every day. It is hard to have pre-concieved notions when you can see for yourself from countless videos, streams and player experience.
Remember people, what activities you partake in AA can be truly unique to each individual. If you come to AA and play it like a familiar themepark, it will let you. If choose to only craft, you can do so. If you choose only to focus on sandbox features, you can do that too, only pvp. etc, etc. So it is the players role to decide how they will play the game and what they find fun and if they can't break the themepark mentality, it isn't a problem with AA, it's just how the player "chooses" to play the game.
Hang on, AoC is a hardcore game since when? It's just a simple WoW clone.
While I would not at all call AoC a Wow clone, the point of that reference 'maybe AoC' was that Archege is distinctly soft. In AoC my mount was a wooly mammoth that attacked with gigantic tusks and trampled enemies. In Archeage, my mount is a bunny rabbit.
I understand your reasoning better now, but still... how would you NOT call it a WoW clone? Almost everything about was pulled from WoW design wise, with the combat being the exception. The thing with the combat though, it used to be way more complex, but they dumbed it waaay down during early beta because the WoW raid guilds said it was too complicated. Funcom went out of their way to make the game a linear themepark quest grinder.
Strangely enough, Archeage just won the game of the year award in Korea - also in the category "Graphics".
So OP, I think it must be your computer that is at fault..
You can please some MMO-players all of the time and you can please all MMO-players some of the time but you can't please all MMO-players all of the time.
Pretty much all neg points are bullshit. Graphics - among the best in genre, Neverwinter - cheap looking crap compared to AA. But game is very demanding on highest settings.
Combat becomes very dynamic when you unlock more skills. Skilled player can do alot here, including terrain usage to escape with gliders, etc. Check this video to see what combat in AA looks like in hands of skilled player (keep in mind, his graphics set on low): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qtH3kdfg1U
The world is enormous. I have hard time to name any other MMORPG that had bigger world on release. Maybe only Darkfall. It will take you much more time to cross one continent, then for example in WoW