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The Depressing Reality (Semi-Review)
BearKnight
Member CommonPosts: 461
So, I've been playing ArcheAge since Alpha, through Beta, and into launch up until today. Today, I have pretty much decided that AA just isn't going to get any better, and most likely will only get worse.
On the outset ArcheAge looked like a strong contender for a long-lasting product. It had a strong end-game with plenty to do (original estimation), and a decent crafting system. All throughout Alpha it was pretty much expected that the game would change DRASTICALLY for launch as we were primarily testing the server architecture using crappy old networking code from the original release of AA that was used in Korea "years" ago. (note the 'years' part, as that will be crucial later in this OP)
Fast-Forward through "Beta" to Release, and we have a crisp newly launched game to enjoy and take in the experience of. But....hold on a second! There isn't anything new here is there? What had changed between Alpha -> Beta -> Release was a drastic dynamic shift in how certain "Builds" worked, how healing overall was changed away from magic into its own "Healing Power" category, tons of nerfs, and some new clothing, content, and "knick-knacks".
What ended up happening is that since ArcheAge has been out in Korea for so long (years), and that so many were in the Alpha for so long the game was pretty much nailed down to begin with in the first week of Release.
Major Guild Stratagems at release comprised of the following:
-Spam roll tons of low level toons to rush the "Green" story quests for Gilda ASAP.
-Use said spammed Gilda (quest currency) to purchase a METRIC TON of starter 15 Gilda houses.
-Use said METRIC TON of rushed houses to lock down nearly the entire server's land for the "Major Elite Guilds".
-Proceed to forum crying, and fresh patrons to having absolutely ZERO land. This turns out to be a 1/3rd of the game ruined for many new players.
Ok, so anyone whom had played in Beta probably knew this was going to happen. The problem, that most of us are just coming to realize, is that this was a critical factor in "Zerg" gameplay that is becoming ever so critical now to doing ANY end-game content.
You see, in Alpha you had "AOE Builds" that could be used in PVP to great effect, and even more you could use these builds to skip all the mind-numbing NOT-SANDBOX gameplay and AOE level off large mob locations. Ignoring the glaring issues that the Korean developers put into place to DETER AOE-Leveling (a sandbox design cut short by Korean developers, odd to say the least) we can see a problem here can't we?
In essence, in MOST other open-world games zerging is a bad...BAD idea, or at least can easily be countered with a smaller stronger force that have quite a bit of AOE in their forces. You see the more units you have in a given space means less room for targets to stand. This means that a force of 100 fighting a force of 300 will force the larger force to pack itself more in tightly to fight the smaller force. This aids the smaller force GREATLY with the use of AOE abilities/attacks/etc to successfully defend itself against mindless zerging mentalities.
You see this in EVE: Online with Stealth Bomber fleets to counter massive zerg-fleets, and you saw this in Dark Age of Camelot with massive AOE Crowd-Control + PBAE bomber groups (not forgetting fire wizards, etc!).
In ArcheAge, the Korean XLGames developers LITERALLY forced the opposite route. They NERFED, almost entirely making AOE pointless, from their game. What this means is that the "Zerg Mentality" absolutely DOMINATES the open fields of ArcheAge. To the point that even the worst players in AA get ahead of the far more skilled players simply by clumping together and ramming their way through their enemies.
A prime example can be found on my server, Enla, where the East is literally outnumbered in end-game pvp by 3:1.
The problem, is that you can't simply "ignore" the zergs as doing almost all end-game activites (ignoring VERY weak, limited, dungeons or FarmAge activites). Running tradepacks in guilds larger than 30 become impossible as spies are LITERALLY everywhere (most servers that are plagued by ZERG guilds are ACTUALLY being plagued by EvE corporations whom have brought EvE tactics, and intel gathering practices, over from EvE).
Then, if you want to run smaller trade-pack runs you have to worry about pirates or privateers being protected by large networks of ZERG spy networks that generally will earn your fancy new merchant vessel innert as 40+ people rush your merchant ship before it can even get near land.
At the end of all of this you'll find that unless you're on the winning side of the zergs you're not going to have much fun. My side on Enla is constantly losing just from sheer lack of numbers, and then you couple that with all of the supposed hacks and exploits being shoved under the rugs over at TRION's office and you get a pretty clear indication of where this game will be in 6 months (hint: not a very good feeling).
Setting all of that aside for a moment. One CLEAR lesson to be learned from all of this is that you should probably avoid any game that does not directly interact with its customer base in a given country, and that if you're a foreign developer you should NOT be the "Host" of a native language for another developer unless you have clear editing/development rights for that given locale. I say this because TRION is catching so much backlash for things that are undeserved (poor code, poor packet security for their network transmissions, etc), but are also NOT catching ENOUGH flak for their horrible customer service that TRION has been presenting now for a better part of 2months.
I really wish this game had more potential, but when you take a game that was meant to be a "Sandbox" game by design, butcher it into a Themepark experience for the leveling experience of 1 -> 50, and then tack-weld a buggy end-game "Sandbox" experience onto it the overall experience suffers in the end.
Is it bad that the Alpha felt far more "Sandbox" than the final product? That seems kind of sad to me 
.
-Bear
ps: I haven't even TOUCHED how absolutely dreadful the crafting system turned out to be. The "Korean" levels of BS associated with the RNG for crafting, or how absolutely scarce crafting materials can be. If you want to know more about just how BAD the crafting is in this game let me know and I'll try to do a short writeup on the crafting system, and just why it doesn't work for western audiences (especially for a "Sandbox Title").
Comments
Started with launch with free to play and become patron 3 weeks after because its the best game out there in the moment.
Since SWG there was not any game i had so much fun with a MMORPG.
What is differnt thats the community of today which isn't that good tbh like it was that time a decade ago.
I just wished SWG had such a labor system to put the jedi grind in place back then and then these guys from korea come with such an genious invention.
What worries me is indeed the cash shop but as long as its like now it is acceptable.
As for now there isnt anything depressing for me and i am enjoy every minute of it.
Might be OP had some plans for launch that didn't turn out like he wanted. Just life i guess. I hope to get his spot and place houses there ( i am generally speaking here to everyone might leave).
I'm sure you already know but the game in your sig will be f2p as well.. Get ready for a lot of the same crap. It's depressing that they chose to go that way.
"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
When the servers become empty then there are no zergs (OP's main grip with the game) the game become godly for everyone who had a problem with people bonding together and building large groups again and the server becomes healthy again.
There is a come and go with MMORPG's and has been always.
However, there were a lot of other issues which made me stop playing, quite a few of those the OP touched on. Crafting in this game was such a disappointment.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Wow what a well written review...I read all of it.
Like the first responder said...AA has taught me that F2P is just another word for =trial F2P has become a buy the box=F2P=buy our gems or buy our Apex or buy our potatoes....
Developers and Publishers are trying to squeeze every red cent out of the consumer by creating events and bogus items just to make a buck.
When I entered AA and saw a player purchase 100 apex and trade it for gold all it is =P2WIN as I played AA I realized
this game is really geared towards you spending money on it lots and lots of money and that is not my idea of any fun.
The only MMos I will be playing now are the pay monthly games like ESO (don't like ESO) where you pay for ALL the content.
The no land dilema of AA is not even my main concern....my main concern is Labor Points in this game..
Pay Patron oh and were gonna use Labor Points so you can not only pay 15.00 a month but so you can also buy credits
to buy Workers potions...just plain stupid...
I lost 15.00 to this game some people lost hundreds I feel bad that I gave Trion this money but I can only imagine
how people that paid 150.00+ didn't even get land at launch...just PATHETIC!!
I have to echo this statement.
There is absolutely no reason to not bot/cheat in this game beyond your own moral compass. You use a 2nd account and the absolute worse thing that can happen to you is they close your account. You make a new account and 3 minutes later you're right back in the game botting again.
Now, I won't go as far as to say that Trion supports botting, but the F2P system certainly does. This mass botting just blows up the economy making it very hard for a legit player to keep up with just the inflation. In order to keep up, a legit player must either invest ridiculous amount of hours to playing every day or use the cash shop. It sucks when you're already paying for patron to have to go beyond that to maintain an equal playing field.
Spent 2 years playing Guild Wars 2 where ArenaNet basically ignored their players and pushed new cash shop over and over every week. My thought at the time was, 'Wow, this company is the worst'. But after Archeage, I've come to grips that it's not actually the company but the system.
WoW is stable, SWToR is growing, FFXIV is growing. The sub resurgence is on. No more F2P games. No more free passes for griefers, botters, hackers and the likes to just do as they please.
Excellent post OP. I left the game due to the land grab issues and hacks associated with it. BTW Like someone else here I did request a refund for the $49 I paid for Patron...and finally did get it refunded. So I have no more beefs with AA other than the loss of a few hours time.
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online
What made Shadowbane great was that certain builds countered other builds strength. People were constantly trying out new tactics with new builds against other guilds.
So true.
Thats weird, there have been many posts on these forums about everyone playing the same handful of builds because of how much more powerful they are then the rest. Ive even comprehensive lists of the most powerful builds that suggest you dont even bother with about 100 of the 120 classes.
No... games get shutdown because they are under-performing. Same reason NGE's happen. What Jean-Luc was saying is something else entirely. When there are a lot of people leaving, it's best for a community to wise up to that, and see it for what it is, not take it as an opportunity to throw pot shots at those "who weren't tough enough"...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I agree with a lot of the stuff the OP mentions. One other issue I would like to mention about this game is that the rewards aren't on par with the grind.
Say I want to earn gold, so I decide I want to do a pack run to Freedich, I craft my packs load up my cart drive at a snails pace for 1/2 hour + to reach the water, sail for another 20 + mins, get there and turn in my packs... awesome right? Wrong! If I am lucky enough to make it there without being zerg ganked and having my ship damaged (which will cost me far more than the gold I get if I succeed), my turn in will net me a few gold which isn't on par with the cash shop inflation.
Example: I make a net of 8 gold turning in my packs. I am running packs to help finance leveling my professions, the 8 gold I just received for an hour of my time isn't enough to cover making a single profession item. And this only matters if I didn't get jacked along the way.
The same theory could be applied to the hasla token grind. You spend hours grinding for a weapon that is basically irrelevant in the zerg type PvP. Bottom line is more numbers = win. Yes you can do arenas but there are no rewards associated with arenas.
Also the damn CCs, they ruin combat. I could see a single CC on a long CD but the fact that some classes (like defiler) can CC basically 6 + times in a minute is just absurd.
Exaggerate much?
First there is no gold turn-in's at Freedich. Second, the gold rewards are higher now. Third, you can get 11g per run far far faster than an hour without ever leaving your continent. If I utilize peacetime, this can all be done in complete safety, no risk.
There is plenty of gold to be made via traderuns which are highly viable for the time spent. Pay no attention to the exaggerated example, moving on....
Well said. The business model is what fuked up this game.
I do believe that this game without the cash shop, gamble boxes, and proper support (customer service) could have been a long term success. A niche game such as EVE. Unfortunately Trion went for the cash garb.
I read the review on this site where the reviewer suggested "patron only servers".
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/572/view/reviews/load/352/Much-to-Do-But-Not-Always-Worth-Doing.html
Excellent idea. It will never happen . All patrons would migrate to those servers. Therefore no more whales on the f2p servers. It is amazing the amount of $00 that whales spend on these games.
Trion have made promises yet to be fulfilled.
Look at (Threadnaught) (228 pages at the time of this post)
http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?56603-No-10-Discount-on-Marketplace-Purchases
All patrons are being cheated of the 10% discount at the moment . (not receiving what they have paid for)
I am still playing and having fun,. I don't consider myself to be a part of the problem as I have not paid Trion a dime, and even though I enjoy the game , I would never pay them any cash to play .
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
F2P is here to stay, simply because it generates far more money than subscriptions.
The Cash Shop allows players who are "short of time" to buy their way to equality with those who play 18 hours a day. Unfortunately, it also allows players to "spend their way" far past those who play 18 hours a day !
And the spenders create a small-scale arms race as others try to keep up... which is all good news for the developer's revenue stream.
When the Cash Shop is indirectly limked to a RNG-based crafting system, it becomes a licence to print money.
I disagree with him. I think community can do a lot of damage to a MMO especially the newly released ones; Look at Tabula Rasa and Vangaurd for example. The players had similar 'can i have your stuff attitude' and chased many players away.
Shadowbane is still around. And its still the best PVP game out there
The power of Zergs is killing the game for me. I basically can't play the game.
I'm waiting to see how the castle thing shakes out next week, but it's entirely possible that the zerg guild on my server will snag all 4 castles (they did it in Beta).
I agree with you OP there should be more power in AOE, or SOMETHING to counter zergs.
I would've liked to see them limit guild size to something like 300 and limit the instant transportation as well. It's far to easy for this guild of over 1k on my server to be basically everywhere at once.
So I find myself downloading ffxiv and dabbling back in Rift. It's hilarious because I've been so bored with themeparks and have been relishing the chance to play a PVP sandbox for years (a quality fantasy one just like this), but the reality of it, thanks to the zerg, is turning me back to themeparks.
I still would love to see an even more sandboxy quality pvp MMO, but they have to figure out a way so that it just doesn't become all about who has more numbers.
I also agree with the initial housing thing. I can't believe they just let people snag like 10 properties. Clearly that's not how the game is meant to be played.
Really?
Better tell Google, they think only emulators are left.
Yeah, I know the hardcore old school sandbox people will disagree but AA had clearly demonstrated why.
They may argue that it worked in UO or SWG but those were different times.
If UO and SWG were released in 2014 then they would have the same problem with massive zerg guilds swarming like locusts and constant attacks from hackers and gold sellers.
Just imagine a big zerg guild spreading across Tatooine with nothing to stop them.
These are the realities of modern MMOs and any future MMOs that do not see AA as a cautionary tale will suffer the same fate.
Instanced player housing may not be "hardcore" or "sandbox" but at least it's a player housing system that actually works.
I disagree with you. Housing like this can and will work. If instanced housing is the only way, then I give up playing games. Instanced housing is absolutely useless in a sandbox game. It's cool for games like SWTOR. Hopefully the next game that does this won't allow 1 person to own dozens of parcels of land. There are ways to make this system better, but XL just doesn't seem to care. All the issues I am reading about this game are the same as what made everyone in the other releases leave the game, and XL did nothing about it.