Review seem bit overhyped with scores going through the roof.
But still nice to hear. AA seem real solid and has potential to be long-term game for me. (as long as there will be at least one separate pure p2p server even if most would be freemium / f2p or whatever)
Originally posted by Gamefun Enerzeal from Darkfall?.
The very same one yes!
Archeage is a vast mixture of several different elements, yes they have very WoW esque quests, but they also have about 30+ house choices not including texture differences and items that go into those homes you build. It's a moasic of some of the best things to come into the MMO industry.
All i can say is, give it a try when it comes over here. You won't regret it.
Nice, how you doing?.
<-- Darkness.
Whoa holy shit man long time hey? What's it been 4 years? Hit me up with a PM or something.
After playing both GW2 and Archeage briefly, i dare to see if Archeage developed its high level content better and improves their generic instance dungeon, Archeage is a much better MMO, the world and the players in Archeage feel organic, instead of a treadmill.
I'm a bit confused though. I thought this was supposed to be the next great sandbox game... what you described in great detail above is basically AION - which was a pretty much a generic grindfest of a themepark with no sandbox elements whatsoever.
The best sandbox MMOs have been EVE and SWG. Does this game share ANYTHING with those? (not that it has to, but it's a point of comparison).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
I'm a bit confused though. I thought this was supposed to be the next great sandbox game... what you described in great detail above is basically AION - which was a pretty much a generic grindfest of a themepark with no sandbox elements whatsoever.
The best sandbox MMOs have been EVE and SWG. Does this game share ANYTHING with those? (not that it has to, but it's a point of comparison).
Not a problem Arieste!
I'll take you through some sandbox features this game has, it is very far from what Aion is.
I'll explain it all with a hypothetical scenario.
I am a level 42. I have opted for a traditional paladin build but with a twist, instead of straight tanking, combat and healing I have ellected for a rogue approach to combat in heavy armor with healing. I am augmenting my tanking with some extra evasion and healing with solid damage. I am however throwing out the shield and taking a duel wield with the slowest strongest axes I can find. I have a friend who has a build that he has decided to work off mine, taking abilities that have in built changes to them based upon the situation the skill is used in. An example would be, if one person cast Ice arrow on a target, that target is slowed and suffers damage, he is slowed for 4 seconds. If a second Ice arrow hits him within the 4 seconds then the effect is compounded and the target is frozen solid for 30 seconds. This might come across as OP, why not just spam Ice arrows then? Well because it has a cooldown of 4 seconds, the same as the debuff on the target. For this particular ice effect to be triggered, it must be used with a second player.
Now I have decided as a level 42, that 42 sucks. I want 43, so I decide firstly to hit up some quest grind with a friend. It's generally faster to do it with a friend beause we don't suffer much exp loss and the quests are over much faster. Add in the fact that my friend is the one who has built his character to augment mine we're in luck.
Ohh but we've encountered some people who want to ruin our day and we spend a good hour pvping with these types battling over our quest location. They get bored and beaten because they just arn't as well synergized as we are, good riddence to them!
So we've built up an appetite for more high octain things, so we opt for a dungeon instead now with a guild member. We clear it all the way to the last boss but we're having an issue. We need more healing, so our new friend heads out and swaps his build around a bit, brings in more healing and we take the boss down no problem.
Now more guildies are logged in and someone has a galleon he wants to go hunt down ships with on the high seas, having finished our dungeon we all tag along. I ask if after the sailing can I please be dropped off at a specific location so that I can place this house deed I have? The captain agrees and we set sail, many ships are destroyed and, fortunately for me, we loot some resources from the ships we blew up, obviously they were bound for the third continent for the city building going on up there. So I get dropped off and several other guildies join me, carrying the supplies, some others come to protect me from enemies looking to kill me and my friends and take the supplies we have.
Eventually my house has been built and I'm placing furniture around it happily, then I get a call from the same captain saying a faction needs help with a siege in twenty minutes, are you up for it?
I think maybe some of your scores might be a little high. It is good to hear though that you are liking the game. My only hope is that it comes to the US soon! I would hate to have to move to South Korea. ^_^
Originally posted by Tibernicus Quest grinding? I thought this was a sandbox? I guess I'll pass...
Plus they still use the old trinity system paradyme...im offf
This is a direct comment refering to how guild wars has changed everything I presume?
All I can say is, I like having a role in a group situation. I like knowing that in this pvp fight my role is specific to my group. This game isn't the triforce approach though. There are CC, Support, off heals, melee dps, ranged dps, magic dps, heal tanks etc etc. The list goes on, I am happy with it, all the banishment of the system does is lower queue times, and give people less responsibility and make things easier.
Well I am looking forward to this game soooo damn much it hurts. I really hope the quests aren't that typical though. Its really starting to get boring. I think TSW did a good job of showing how you can make crafting more interactive and creative. While I don't neccessarily need the same experience I just hope it isn't like GW2 go hear kill this, click this, collect this, escort this, repeat over and over and over again.
Originally posted by willblade How is crafting in this game? Really interested in seeing what a player can expect from the crafting system in the game.
Looks to be somewhat like L2.
Here is a post I made a while back giving a brief overview of crafting;
The game is sounding exactly as I expect it to be. Awesome, except for combat... because I don't enjoy the common 'wow' style combat. I was really hoping for something a little more... active and perhaps a bit more twitch based almost like GW2.
Considering all the other great aspects of the game, I could possibly look past the combat and current weak questing (that's something they can easily build upon after the world / game play features are strong enough) but I've played enough MMORPG's to know that since you spend so much time in combat, if it's not the type of combat you enjoy, you're not going to stick with the game long.
Why do I write, create, fantasize, dream and daydream about other worlds? Because I hate what humanity does with this one.
This game is sounding like everything Dark and Light should have been.I even noticed players on gliders in some of the videos.Supposedly Dark and Light is getting remade and renamed to Savage Horizon.I haven't heard anything new about Savage Horizon,i guess it got shelved .
My one question though,will Crafted gear be better then mob dropped items in ArchAge?
My one question though,will Crafted gear be better then mob dropped items in ArchAge?
Well, nothing can be said about what might be in at release, but so far it very much looks like crafting will be needed for the top grades of gear.
Notice from the 2 videos linked in my post above that the gear only cons as Blue, 1 set is from a Boss drop from a very tough open world encouter event.
Firstly something about my MMO history. I've played MMO's since roughly 2000. I started with 2D isometric indy games like Ashen Empires, a distinctly sandbox game. I moved on into Everquest and then jumped into Final Fantasy 11. Once I finished in Final Fantasy 11 the great game hop began and has only rested for roughly a year or so in world of warcraft, a game I enjoyed for the challenge the vanilla raids gave me as a guild leader.
Since my first solid world of warcraft play through I have been jumping around from game to game, not resting long. I am currently subscribed to WoW, TSW, and also Eve Online. My Tera subscription just ran out - and I will be canceling my WoW and my TSW accounts shortly.
I am a sandbox gamer at heart. I want all of the hardcore elements that only the niche seem to want also. My hopes for Archeage were always going to be that of building a city, pvping with some adrenalin and fear of losing my stuff, the general favorites a sandbox gamer wants.
I like to think my opinion of games has evolved beyond "Ohh lol themepark garbage" which I have been guilty of before, so I will be writing this as openly as I possibly can, but it is opinion and not everything can be seen as fact because, well, it's all in Korean so I might be missing some key points!
Anyway onto the review, I shall target everything I can talk about in detail, with a summary at the end, enjoy and thank you for reading. If you want to watch some of my play through then http://www.twitch.tv/enerzeal/b/330122496 should take care of that nicely. This is my Live stream of an almost six hour play through. Thanks.
Graphics.
The graphical style is one that heavily reminds me of Lineage 2 and of Aion, which would make sense as jake song made Lineage 2 and Aion was made using an older version of the Cry Engine. At times the landscape can look a little bland, a little "wrong", as if something isn't turned on. I do play on ultra settings so I am getting the best out of it. The bad textures however are significantly overshadowed by sheer beauty that the world can muster. It is probably best described with me telling you about my mount I have. It's a reindeer looking thing. It is the single most beautiful looking mount I have laid eyes on in any game. It looks exactly as it should do, its fur is real almost, it's posture is perfect - the armor I can equip on it looks perfect for it. I can only imagine some people taking issue with the style of the games playable characters and same race NPCs. Some of them do look very Korean, one of the human races looks under aged, the male elf looks very delicate, and the female ferres looks frankly strange in my eyes, but as I said a moment ago it's purely down to taste, the graphics for them are still as beautiful as my fluffy reindeer mount.
as it stands I would say 10/10.
Animations.
This game shines on it's animations. I have only taken issue with the ferres run right now as it seems a little odd, otherwise the game is alive. Going back to my lovely Reindeer, from his mouth you can see mist as it breaths. When it approaches a steep climb you can see it change animation as it digs in for a surer footing to climb with. When I back up on my mount it's head drops to the side and looks down and it prances backwards. My character will randomly perform idle animations that look stunning. There is an overload of emoticons as well, all perfect looking if a little asian in style, which isn't a problem in my mind. Attack animations are flawless, bows look brilliant as do weapon attacks and charges, magic casting and death animations all making the game more real than any to date.
If I give graphics a 10, then the animations can only be 10/10 as well.
Sounds and music.
Before the server came up I decided to click on the credits button, I say decided to click the credits button, what I actually did was click some Korean just to see what happened. When the music began playing that accompanies the scrolling Korean had a profound effect on me. I was moved. I could not explain why I was moved but it just triggered something in my chest, I had nothing to associate this music with yet, no memories or emotions, yet I felt a strange familiarity with it. I would say that the music of Archeage is most reminiscent of Final Fantasy.
Now the sounds and ambiance are also truly perfect. I moved close to a burning torch and listen to it as it roared, for as long as it took my fellow guildy to come on over and put the torch out as it was "day time and this doesn't need to be on!". When I drop from a high height I can hear the wind rustle past my ears. I can hear bushes move as I wade through them. It might seem like a fanboy ranting but again these sounds and the music cannot be faulted, the team at XL games seems to have gone above and beyond the call when it comes to immersion, as a result two hours of exploration doesn't feel like wasted game time, I'll talk more about that later.
Sounds and music easily take another 10/10.
Quest grind.
The quest grind doesn't really move from the normal system and is simple enough that without any knowledge of the Korean language I can figure my way through most quests, some more difficult than others but I've not skipped one yet and I would say I have completed roughly 100 or so quests. Although the model doesn't differ in any way from say WoW, what it does is take the same neat packaging of quest hubs that WoW has, which at least makes the going more streamlined. Couple up the immersion of the world and the scale and beauty, quest grinds are less mind numbing than they are peaceful. The over achievements you can gain by killing more than you need to really feel nice as well, you can choose after a point when you feel you've had enough and hand it in.
Now what I really think brings up the quest grind is the fact that grouping won't kill your exp. I played through to level 12 solo. By level 8 I had obviously missed something as I had begun to drop behind the levelling curve, quests were over leveled and I was finding it more difficult to continue, you can see from the stream I posted above I was sometimes three levels to low. Well when I played with my friend through the same area, by the time I moved into the third zone I was easily a level or in some cases two levels higher. This for me is vital as it means soloing is viable, but grouping is rewarded.
I would say 5/10 for the questing, it's not great but not bad, its "what we expect". I would then add on another point for a streamlined system and a good growth curve, and another two ontop for the grouping elements.
Quest grind gets an 8/10 for being a relaxed, group friendly experience.
Combat.
Combat in Archeage is combat in most other MMO's. In fact I would say that it's identical to rift or WoW. Take an ability move within range and use. React and rotate as the situation requires it. It's reactions you can before based upon what affects you have already stacked makes for a slightly more tactical game. Especially considering that these share between those in your group. All I can say that is without an onslaught of flashy particle effects and over the top attacks what we have is a stylish approach to the traditional game with a nice overlay of increase tactical play. Fights are over quickly, they do not however take the easy approach adopted by say, WoW, where you can fight many at once, but a more reserved 1-2 at once dependant on build, which adds a whole new layer to the combat, your build dictates your tactics and how you respond to a monster. Alone however I would score combat based on it's traditional approach with a point or two extra because of the animations, tactical gameplay and for the fact that I personally enjoyed it.
So combat gets 8/10.
Skills.
Skills are unique in the MMO world, most closely the system would relate to Rift, with more freedom. In Archeage we have a number of trees, I have counted thirteen of them. Each has it's own specific focal point, be it healing, buffing, archery etc, any of the main types. I can take three of these and equip whatever armor or weapon I choose and invest points into these trees as I see fit assuming I have hit the perquisite over all level. What this does is create a palette of options as to how I build up my character. Though there may be plenty of paladin types (healing, armor, combat), each would invest his or her points differently. What this creates is on the downside possible flavor of the month builds, but on the up side we have choice like we haven't had in years. If you haven't enjoyed a system like this before then this will be a true awakening for you.
Any skill system with this much freedom easily earns a 10/10 from me.
World.
Now I haven't explored nearly as much as I could of done, although today me and a guildy decided to strike out and check out some new towns, ports, an arena, some locations from concept art - I feel I have seen enough to give an opinion on the world its self. First off, it's massive, it is truly massive. It has size like the older MMOs had. Around every corner is something new, something beautiful to look at. Trying to keep this section contain with rambling on would be difficult so I will simply say this. The world is just that, a world. When I log off it continues around without me, if I had any gripes, it would be that NPCs could be more animated, walk around more, interact, talk. Perhaps however this is beta talking, perhaps it's a Korean divide, who knows.
What I do know is that the World is a 9/10.
Misc.
This section I will not score but I will mention a few things I have had the opportunity to mess with. Firstly mounts, great fun, they level with you, can be equipped with armor. There are plenty in the game so a collection is possible. You can carry passengers and use several attacks from your mount.
Fast travel is brilliant but broken currently. The carts that travel around a zone look great but are very choppy and have a habit of getting stuck. The city transport I used today suffers the same issue but again looks very cool. The airship would be the most badass if it didn't suffer from major clipping issues and a ride that you spend more time worrying you'll fall off. My channel also has a video of the airship ride so you can see for yourself. http://www.twitch.tv/enerzeal/b/330226647
The glider is fantastic fun, really nice for getting around. The vistas and scenery that the glider opens up is also a plus point. It's a great gadget which I think I'll miss in other MMOs when I play them as I wait for this game. Head up to a cliff, activate it and sore over the land and watch you shadow skip over the landscape or your reflection over the water.
Interactive scenery! Ladders! Robes to shimmy along! Trees to climb! These are all fantastic for immersion.
I've had an opportunity to look around and inside the housing we'll have on offer and I cannot wait to have a guild hall. Clapping eyes on that beast was a nostalgic moment when I thought back to UO and their towers. Then I opened the windows and had a moment. The housing is all so interactive!
The siege towers are fun, although I had very little interaction beyond riding them around and firing the cannon. They ride smooth however and look perfect.
The very last thing I can think off would be the ships. The ships contain two sails for lowering and raising. An anchor, 8 guns, two planks for a walkin, a crows nest with a telescope which adds to the mini map icons for all ships in the area, lastly there is the steering wheel. The ships are amazing, they are smooth, they look amazing, I cannot explain how amazing they play, then there is the guild ship... Ohh the guild ship. It cannot be controlled, but it's a play house in the making I can feel it.
Summary.
In summary I decided very quickly that this game, without even laying hands upon the more important aspects of pvp, dungeoning, raids, and sieges - is the one. I haven't been excited over a game in so very long, and this one is like those early days. It's going to be one painful journey to release, but a journey we all have to make!
This game however has made me angry in one way. I have to ask myself just what all these other developers of MMOs are doing with their time. I have played one of the finest games ever over the past few days made at a fraction of the cost that goes into the bigger named titles, and I have to ask, just what the hell are they all doing?
Thanks for reading if you made it this far,
~ Enerzeal
Hate seeing the combat is so cookie cutter...tab targets are slowly going away, but the ones that are okay at least have the evasion roll skills etc to dodge skills. I'm assuming this game doesn't have that?
Incognito www.incognito-gaming.us "You're either with us or against us"
I have to ask myself just what all these other developers of MMOs are doing with their time.
making GW2 i guess. u know, a game with real combat and balanced pvp. these are things that are absolutely essential for "endgame", cuz grinding mats and stomping easy PVE content gets old fast. without interesting combat mechanics, and dedicated pvp balancing, i cant really even look at an MMO.
I'm really excited to hear more about the different specializations for classes. I personally love variety and hate playing games where everyone is the same.
In summary I decided very quickly that this game, without even laying hands upon the more important aspects of pvp, dungeoning, raids, and sieges - is the one.
I hope you get the chance to review them. Aside from the highly interactive player/guild housing and ships all else (especially questing) seem to be the familiar MMORPG fare-- nothing different although done with high quality. I'm curious as to how much of a sandbox this is and can I avoid the PvP/PvE-gear threadmill and what do I have left if I chose not to participate in it.
Hate seeing the combat is so cookie cutter...tab targets are slowly going away, but the ones that are okay at least have the evasion roll skills etc to dodge skills. I'm assuming this game doesn't have that?
Did you really had to quote the whole OP just for a two lines comment?
Personally I'm looking forward to Archeage. I like the art design and hopefully the ties to the Lineage of old.
I must admit that this game looks amazing. All i need in fantasy mmo is wow with better graphic and option to build something like houses. What i like in this game is the pace of combar, almost smooth as in wow, not to fast not to slow and most important there is no classic asian explosion effect when character throw punches. Now i understand that hype
Comments
Review seem bit overhyped with scores going through the roof.
But still nice to hear. AA seem real solid and has potential to be long-term game for me. (as long as there will be at least one separate pure p2p server even if most would be freemium / f2p or whatever)
Whoa holy shit man long time hey? What's it been 4 years? Hit me up with a PM or something.
Thanks for the write-up.
I'm a bit confused though. I thought this was supposed to be the next great sandbox game... what you described in great detail above is basically AION - which was a pretty much a generic grindfest of a themepark with no sandbox elements whatsoever.
The best sandbox MMOs have been EVE and SWG. Does this game share ANYTHING with those? (not that it has to, but it's a point of comparison).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Not a problem Arieste!
I'll take you through some sandbox features this game has, it is very far from what Aion is.
I'll explain it all with a hypothetical scenario.
I am a level 42. I have opted for a traditional paladin build but with a twist, instead of straight tanking, combat and healing I have ellected for a rogue approach to combat in heavy armor with healing. I am augmenting my tanking with some extra evasion and healing with solid damage. I am however throwing out the shield and taking a duel wield with the slowest strongest axes I can find. I have a friend who has a build that he has decided to work off mine, taking abilities that have in built changes to them based upon the situation the skill is used in. An example would be, if one person cast Ice arrow on a target, that target is slowed and suffers damage, he is slowed for 4 seconds. If a second Ice arrow hits him within the 4 seconds then the effect is compounded and the target is frozen solid for 30 seconds. This might come across as OP, why not just spam Ice arrows then? Well because it has a cooldown of 4 seconds, the same as the debuff on the target. For this particular ice effect to be triggered, it must be used with a second player.
Now I have decided as a level 42, that 42 sucks. I want 43, so I decide firstly to hit up some quest grind with a friend. It's generally faster to do it with a friend beause we don't suffer much exp loss and the quests are over much faster. Add in the fact that my friend is the one who has built his character to augment mine we're in luck.
Ohh but we've encountered some people who want to ruin our day and we spend a good hour pvping with these types battling over our quest location. They get bored and beaten because they just arn't as well synergized as we are, good riddence to them!
So we've built up an appetite for more high octain things, so we opt for a dungeon instead now with a guild member. We clear it all the way to the last boss but we're having an issue. We need more healing, so our new friend heads out and swaps his build around a bit, brings in more healing and we take the boss down no problem.
Now more guildies are logged in and someone has a galleon he wants to go hunt down ships with on the high seas, having finished our dungeon we all tag along. I ask if after the sailing can I please be dropped off at a specific location so that I can place this house deed I have? The captain agrees and we set sail, many ships are destroyed and, fortunately for me, we loot some resources from the ships we blew up, obviously they were bound for the third continent for the city building going on up there. So I get dropped off and several other guildies join me, carrying the supplies, some others come to protect me from enemies looking to kill me and my friends and take the supplies we have.
Eventually my house has been built and I'm placing furniture around it happily, then I get a call from the same captain saying a faction needs help with a siege in twenty minutes, are you up for it?
Of course I am up for it.
Plus they still use the old trinity system paradyme...im offf
This is a direct comment refering to how guild wars has changed everything I presume?
All I can say is, I like having a role in a group situation. I like knowing that in this pvp fight my role is specific to my group. This game isn't the triforce approach though. There are CC, Support, off heals, melee dps, ranged dps, magic dps, heal tanks etc etc. The list goes on, I am happy with it, all the banishment of the system does is lower queue times, and give people less responsibility and make things easier.
Assuming the beta is still running tonight I will be streaming at 11 EST on..
http://www.twitch.tv/enerzeal
and my guild member will be streaming to our guild account or his own.
http://www.twitch.tv/kindred_rising
Looks to be somewhat like L2.
Here is a post I made a while back giving a brief overview of crafting;
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/572/view/forums/post/5270083
The game is sounding exactly as I expect it to be. Awesome, except for combat... because I don't enjoy the common 'wow' style combat. I was really hoping for something a little more... active and perhaps a bit more twitch based almost like GW2.
Considering all the other great aspects of the game, I could possibly look past the combat and current weak questing (that's something they can easily build upon after the world / game play features are strong enough) but I've played enough MMORPG's to know that since you spend so much time in combat, if it's not the type of combat you enjoy, you're not going to stick with the game long.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
This game is sounding like everything Dark and Light should have been.I even noticed players on gliders in some of the videos.Supposedly Dark and Light is getting remade and renamed to Savage Horizon.I haven't heard anything new about Savage Horizon,i guess it got shelved
.
My one question though,will Crafted gear be better then mob dropped items in ArchAge?
GAME TIL YOU DIE!!!!
Well, nothing can be said about what might be in at release, but so far it very much looks like crafting will be needed for the top grades of gear.
Notice from the 2 videos linked in my post above that the gear only cons as Blue, 1 set is from a Boss drop from a very tough open world encouter event.
This -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09jT9GKeeuE
In Russian, multiple waves, then a mini-boss wave, finally the boss wave. So this only drops blue gear and the top grade is way beyond that.
Hate seeing the combat is so cookie cutter...tab targets are slowly going away, but the ones that are okay at least have the evasion roll skills etc to dodge skills. I'm assuming this game doesn't have that?
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
making GW2 i guess. u know, a game with real combat and balanced pvp. these are things that are absolutely essential for "endgame", cuz grinding mats and stomping easy PVE content gets old fast. without interesting combat mechanics, and dedicated pvp balancing, i cant really even look at an MMO.
good read.
I'm really excited to hear more about the different specializations for classes. I personally love variety and hate playing games where everyone is the same.
kind of disappoined to hear that the game looks great but the questing system is standard MMO fare
ah well
I hope you get the chance to review them. Aside from the highly interactive player/guild housing and ships all else (especially questing) seem to be the familiar MMORPG fare-- nothing different although done with high quality. I'm curious as to how much of a sandbox this is and can I avoid the PvP/PvE-gear threadmill and what do I have left if I chose not to participate in it.
Did you really had to quote the whole OP just for a two lines comment?
Personally I'm looking forward to Archeage. I like the art design and hopefully the ties to the Lineage of old.