Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
ArcheAge: Trion Worlds' Community Day
BMunchausen
Staff WriterMMORPG.COM Staff Posts: 400
For a while I've been meaning to get a peek at ArcheAge, but somehow other things keep getting in the way. As luck would have it though, I was recently invited to Trion Worlds' Redwood Shores office for a combination media/community day where I was given some hands-on time with the game. Some might say experiencing a game's high level content first is a bit like reading a book back to front. Still, having spent hours since then playing the beta version from the beginning, I'll admit I'm glad I did it that way.
Read more of Neilie Johnson's ArcheAge Trion Worlds Community Day Preview.
Comments
I complained to Trion in feedback to the email they say to send feedback to (but it makes a tech support ticket, go figure) about the pay wall they block beta weekend people from doing the trade run quest tutorial.
...uh what the hell?! Why force people to have to PAY to try a feature in a TUTORIAL! You are told to make some Solzreed dried meat or something and need grapes.
In order to have grapes you need a grapevine.
In order to have a grapevine you need a farm that allows it.
Not ONE pubic farm allows growing them, nor do the temporary scarecrow farms even allow you to build one despite doing a quest that gives you a certificate to build one. Upon right clicking the paper, you are told not allowed on free accounts.
!!!!
The game is still in CLOSED status and they are charging people for this?
I logged off and didn't bother with it anymore.
twitch.tv/itpaladin
@ITPalg
YouTube: ITPalGame
Blackthorne Legend Gaming | Join Us! Jahosefat - Deckhand of Blackthorne
There is a public farm nursery in White Arden that allows grapevines to be grown. Fruits in the game are considered trees so hit up the sapling merchant for a grapevine sapling. You can grow 5 at time there and harvest every 4 hours I believe. You also run into a vineyard if you wait till later levels in the tutorial but that seemed to be farmed pretty regularly.
Ok not you call you clueless but the AH isnt in the TUTORIAL! After playing 2 CBT's, I can honestly say that the game is pay2win. The only way to avoid succumbing to the pay2win mode is never hope to make your own gear, hope to avoid PK'rs since your gear is lacking severely, never hope to take up a craft and advance in it at a normal pace like normal f2p games. The 2 biggest factors in calling it P2W is the inability to be self sufficient and having to pay more for electric bill cuz you will need to afk to earn labor points to do anything notable.
I foresee a mass exodus post launch when free players and those with expire patron benefits really see the game for what it is -- an asian convert made specifically as a subscription business model that fails horribly as free 2 play.
Actually White Aden has a public nursery that allows all kinds of trees including grapevines. Otherwise it is very well possible to plant grapevines in secluded spots (ideally inside a brush or shrubs as masking and in areas people go only for questing and tend to run through without paying much attention). I've done that a few times as F2P and that made the Solzreed and subsequent Trade guide quests quite simple. Just make sure you set a clock, accept you might loose some to pilfering and don't constantly check on them to raise attention.
That being said: I agree, the starter quests and game introduction is REALLY shallow and in my opinion very detrimental to the game. What you learn that way is almost exclusively about the bland standard faire of quest and combat any MMO offers, while the things that make it more unique have barely any introduction/information.
If Trion keeps it that way and does not significantly manage to branch the starter quests off into crafting and housing and farming and such (with WAY more information and hand holding, does not even explain that you need ground grain to feed to chicken - which you get from cutting 10 of ONE grain type with a Shatigon knife, this starter potatoe quest on the other hand is pretty useless as there is nothing to be done subsequently with the potatoe) ... I think they will hurt them self a lot business wise.
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Freeloaders has tons of options.....
1: Grow plants in the wild in a hidden spot
2: Buy from the auction house, your not alowed to sell but you can always buy
3: Friends / guild be social not anti social and you can do whatever you want
You can cry your eyeballs out till your eyes bleed, but you are free to play, you do not support the studios or developers and there needs to be a reason for people to say damn i sub to this awesome game so i unlock it all.
Freeloaders that never pay anything or do not support the game are just leechers, why should leechers get on par with people that pay a small free in the form of a subscription ?
Go play something else if it bothers you, Archeage aint pay to win its a subscription mmo with a free to play "trial"
You dont have to buy a 60 euro box, you can just pay 12 euro or soon you can buy APEX aka Plex with gold.
I wished Trion just deleted this whoel free to play crap from Archeage or offer a server with patron players only so i dont have to see all these freeloaders cry all day everyday in the chat channels.
o/
Problem is even if you are a patron, Labor Point design still makes the game pay to win. I wanted to like this game so bad couldn't wait for it. Then I got in an realized what a fucking pay gate the Labor Point system was. I figured hell they have it setup that way to ensure people patron if they want to be serious about it. Initially I thought well if I like it I'll become a patron so I don't ever need to worry about that. Sure enough LP's pots in the shop, and I come to find out late game if you want to accomplish a lot of things, you're gonna need to buy them and most likely a lot of them at that. If when becoming a patron you had endless LP, I'd say this game isn't pay to win. But when LP is used to open fucking loot along with any other "sandboxey" like action, I uninstalled and will never come back. It is the most pathetic slap in the face pay to win system I have ever seen. It is because it tries to disguise itself as not being, but with a little research you'll see how disgusting it is. I love the fanboi's that defend the system.
And by the way the guy you were complaining about being a freebie and how trion has to eat. He was talking about them locking crap behind the pay way DURING BETA, you know when things should be open to test. If it was live then so be it, but its a damn beta. Not to mention this pay wall the guy hit, was on TUTORIAL quests. So the tutorial is going to "teach" you how to spend your money?!? Lol what a farce. Trion must be a sinking ship to go this low. I had respect for them when they launched Rift. That has all but evaporated. This site and its sugarcoated "reviews" and puffpieces are just as bad as of late.
Not sure how it is on F2P, but I had no LP problems as a Patron. Silver Pack is totally worth it.
I see a lot of people complain about LP, I also see one other thing they have in common. They are playing a MMO as a single player game. It just wont work. You need friends, a guild, cooperation to get most of the big things done.
Me and 3 others, F2P others, built a farm, a house and the clipper in 2 days. We did a few things that most arent doing. We budgeted our LP. We planned on who was doing what. One gathered cotton, one gatheres stone and iron.
We did all have one pack for the clipper, one built the drydock, 3 of us used the packs..voila. Clipper!
I never bought a potion for LP. Never used any of the cash shop items either. We still got things done
Its a MMO, you NEED other players to help to get the things you want. LP, budget, use your head and plan out things.
I coulnt care less if some random guy 98247390 say Archeage is pay to win.
There is nothing in the cash shop that gives an advantage, and if you think a labor pot on 12 hour cooldown is pay to win then LOL have a good one m8.
Our guild builded 2 gallions in CB2 on a new server with freeloaders and patrons.
We worked on this as a team, but this crazy whining about pay to win and crying freeloaders are realy making themselves look like a fool.
I played in the russian server as a freeloader and kicked ass left and right had my clipper and gear crafted with 1 labor per 5 minutes.
Thing is a big chunk of current mmo players are so spoonfed with epix in their mailbox they cant think straight anymore and panic when they need to put effort into a game, or play smart and micro manage their stuff.
This breed of mmo players are a joke and it seems there are tons and tons of them, alot are lurking here on these forums bashing and crying their eyeballs out like you who keep saying Pay to Win <-----
Your a joke man lol
Go grow some balls and try the russian client if you realy want to see how hard it can get.
EU/USA freeloader life is 5 times as easy.
Hilarious breed of mmo players these days........
Not sure I understand your problem.
You can grow grapevines anywhere in the world.
I have not encountered any labor point issues during beta.
What is this "actual game" that you cannot get to without doing the quests ? The quests are not mandatory, they are 100% optional.
Who is forcing you to do these quests ?
What do you imagine you'll be doing after the quests are finished, and why can't you do that right from the start ?
Or are you really saying that the "actual game" only starts at level cap, and you're simply complaining about being "forced" to level to 50 before being able to "enjoy the game" ?
I see people who claim the game to be "pay2win" instead of free to play; and I call bullshit on all their "evidence".
This is coming from someone who has been waiting on the game for years, I paid for my archeum pack by saving up money for it (because that's a way y'know!) in-case we have any people who use the "rich boy" excuse on me.
The game is awesome and Daxamar is right- You're playing an Massively Multiplayer Online game as a singleplayer RPG. Now I know some people (I for one also) have suffered from assholes who claim they will help but either kill me or steal a boss for a quest so you end up feeling isolated. It hurts, I know.. but you need to understand that the way the game is revolving is about talking to one another, socializing, negotiating and battling one another. It's a fun experience.
for example I was just starting my elite quest for the cloth hood two days ago to complete my set and I knew the stereotypical "they won't co-operate" was just buzzing in my head, I then saw only two people just talking where it starts (because this quest can only be done at 2am or 2pm in-game time) and so we formed a raid and talked about the game and grinded the mobs around us and invited more people who were doing the exact same quest. we ended up with around 10 to 15. it was amazing, it felt great to talk to people trying to achieve the same thing.
And for the LP System, that system is good in it's own way I mean sure the gaining of the points are slow BUT WHO THE HELL CARES! you have a WORLD out there just waiting on you to discover, kill, hunt and sail. DO SOMETHING WHILE WAITING IF YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR LP! this isn't a normal MMORPG now. it's something bigger than that, it's a SANDBOX and if this isn't the thing you are TRUELY looking for go to some other game that has what you need. this site literally has a LIST of games (hundreds in fact!!) that have things that are specific to YOU! so find one, play it and enjoy; because being upset because "you're disappointed" that it's not what you hoped for ? it's quite sad.
I am saying this as a neutral stand point even though right now you thought I was biased towards the game.
I only have on peeve with the game and I bet it's only because of the stages of beta (y'know the whole 'immune' bug when you attack a mob or enemy ?) and also the trial channel...(not exactly fullproof but I digress) this game has still got a LONG way to go but I can't wait to be gliding down to Marianole with a buzzing community, guild alliances formed, traders giving in packs, rare quests to be conquered and defeating the Kraken for the first time.
Don't hate. Appreciate
Not great at grasping points or taking a step back to look at thing objectively are you? My point wasn't free player versus patron when it came to pay to win. My point was the labor point design in and of itself is pay to win period whether free to play or patron. You don't think so, then I think we can add you to the fanboi column. See lets say I am a patron and paying them money monthly. I pay them my monthly patron fee but nothing more. Then someone else who is a patron comes along and on top of his patron status, buys a full months worth of Labor Point pots. We'll say its a 30 day month. So at 2,000 extra points a day for a month that person racked up 60k extra Labor points over me. In 6 months they'll have 360k LP more than me. Can you think of something useful to do with 360k extra labor points? I sure could have. This isn't about free player versus patron. Even if you are paying them as a patron, someone who pays them more is still ahead of the game and can accomplish more than you solely because they paid them more. Someone paying a subscription fee will be at a disadvantage when it comes to in game accomplishments compared to someone who is also paying a sub fee but giving them more on top. That in case you don't know the definition, would be pay to win.
I wanted to like this game, was really looking foward to it. But unlike you, I won't let blind fanboi'ism of a game let me be taken advantage of by a greedy publisher. If you want to support unethical behavior from a publisher, hey by all means open your wallet. I'm sure Trion was hoping to dupe people like you. Those of us who have the ability to be objective and see the situation for what it is, will be happy to retain our money.
P2W is always a rather subjective term.
Can you buy an advantage? To some extent. Is it substantial? No.
Before i get into detail about Labor Points, the most important P2W cash shop item.. i want to talk about other "p2w" stuff.. there are "xp" increase potions(crafting, honor, looting), which improve leveling(very much like GW2 for comparsion reasons, or almost any other F2P/B2P game), and labor pots are more or less the same, as i will show below.. but to come back to those xp potions.. they trade basicly time spent ingame vs. $ and will be nullified at some point(max level). It is p2w, it is GW2 like p2w.. but not really relevant long term, and not substantial at all.. because in the end everyone will be in the same boat either spending a few bugs+ time, or some more time(and i really don't talk about month of time).
Now to labor pots.
You can buy every 12 hours a labor pot worth of 1000 labor points for around 2$.
Or you get(as subscriber) 720 labor points beeing offline or 1440 labor points beeing online in 12 hours.
With other words you could double up your labor points in a month(30 day month) investing(theoretically buying every 12h one pot) spending 120$ a month.
Does that matter? It depends.
Are you a power gamer(24/7) and want to max everything as fast as possible(all skills, houses, castle) you will be short on Labor Points.. even investing the 120$/month as long as you rush to the end.
Are you a casual 10-20h/week, you will most probably never have any labor points shortage as subscriber.
Will it influence the power level? Depends.. in the rushing up phase maybe. But do you really want to spend 140$ the first month, to be on the top in half the time as all the other power gamers(not to talk that you have to play 24/7, but that's it what power gaming is all about, isn't it?) And in all honestly, with double the labor points your effective advantage will not be double as fast even.. more like you beeing 1/3-1/4 faster.(and that is only about crafting, farming, building... well things you actually spend labor points). Basicly not even as much worth as the crafting xp potion giving 100% the xp.. but on the other side those crafting xp potions are just worth it, when you actually got the labor potions to rush to the end.
So yes.. for every power gamer rushing to end(within the first 7 days to 2 weeks, or does it actually take longer, even without any xp potions?) it may matter.. you could be a few days early on top spending massive amount of money.
For everyone else, who will be fine with beeing in 2-4 weeks on top it does not actually matter. May you be limited on how many you can craft/build at times? Most probably yes, with spending money for pots or without, especially when you invest a lot of time and doing more or less nothing else as crafting/farming/building. Labor points are somewhat of a progression barrier for farming/building/crafting.
But after all you should do a lot of that stuff in groups anyway, and then most of it is easily overcome with the regular labor points, too.
Does that affect your power level(combat)? Without looking at the rushing up phase.. no not really. Within the rushing up phase those investing a lot of money can actually get at first the best gear + level and will have an advantage playing 24/7 for a few days. But after a few weeks everyone beeing max level, and gear available from different resources(crafting by your own, others or AH) it doesn't matter anymore.
So all in all. Yes it is P2W in the rushing phase.. like it is P2W in GW2 or almost any other F2P/B2P game.. and furthermore if you do want to play ArcheAge with all it's facets you have to be a subscriber.. or a very casual player with buying a few labor potions/month(less than the subscriber fee). Freeloading is just a trial with missing a lot.. but that is not that much different to other freemium games where you can only level up to a certain level or with other similar restrictions.
Is it P2W(as for most actually use that term, but is just a different scale of P2W) that you will have permanently and always have and advantage investing heavily in the cash shop in comparsion to others not doing so(with overpowered weapons only available in the cash shop... you know the classical p2w game)? No.. in no way.
With other words it is more or less like almost all freemiums games. You have to pay the subscription as a serious gamer, and you still have the rushing up GW2 level of P2W. Does that actually matter? No, not really. I couldn't spend 24/7 anyway and was always overleveled(in the beginning) from some extreme hardcore players.. no matter if it was just the regular p2p game of old times or those new Cash Shop games with some XP potions.
And about me? I would prefer it would be a usual P2P game, without any CashShop or Freeloaders... but i guess that time is more or less over for the usual game(with a few exceptions.. at least for some time). But a patron only server would be actually a good idea.. well.. maybe Trion could be even convinced to spare a cash shop for those servers.. not that it would matter much.
And hell.. i don't even know what is more of a pain in the ass.. the cash shop, or the freeloaders. But i usually don't like both very much.
For many of the so called gamer's here Archeage's biggest problem will be that they will need too think about what they are doing instead of just running around madly clicking every NPC with a ! over their head. That is a hell of concept for people who think a MMO should be a guided tour on rails to raidville and be spoonfed every morsel of content. I hope they release it just as it is, built in dumbass filter that will cause the kiddies to avoid the game like the plague.
I miss DAoC
Say it ain't so Joe. Money can buy privilege in a virtual world too? Shocking!
Thing is..I really don't see the issue here. The cash store has jack all and unless you are someone that just has to have everything the Joneses have regardless of any other factors working for or against you or them..fanatically so....then it shouldn't be an issue.
I've commented on the Labor system in the past. I like it. I hated the fact that in many MMOS you just gather mats and click a button to somehow produce a million suits of armor in seconds(hyperbole yes). ...and a single character shouldn't be able to make an entire Galleon in one non-stop marathon of crafting diligence...even if they have all the mats.
Some sound like they wish to solely craft without experiencing much of the rest of the game. Maybe Landmark would be a better fit.
I do see mounts for sale in the shop so..you might get a mount a whole 5 levels before someone else or vice versa.
This game is just not for some (perhaps many) people. Just like a prior poster mentioned..there is a list of MMOs as long as my pecke...um...person. There has got to be something you like.
I like the game and even paid for the Archeum pack....but I have M.M.O A.D.D... so I jump around a lot anyway.
lol
cash shop is just a money magnet for the stupid people money. Best example is the Workers Compensation labor pots. One thousand labor points for 300 credits. 20 dollars buys 2500 credits so that would buy you 8 of those things or 8000 labor points.
Now if you have 2 brain cells you would just spend $15 dollars for a second patron account and you have a little labor point generator that will give you 1440 a day minimum, log it on spend the 1400 labor mining for an hour and do the same thing the next night.. 30 days later you have spent over 43,000 labor mining for a outlay of 15 dollars. 43 labor pots would have cost you over 100 dollars. Point is that only stupid or desperate people will use the cash shop.
Bottom line is if you are the kind of player that just has to have a purple elk to ride around on, the the cash shop was made for you. Being pretty much a hard core player I plan on having 2 patron accounts and using in game gold and the APEX system to pay for both of them by the end of the first month. The suckers can play in the cash shop all they want
I miss DAoC
Seriously? I was in CBE2 as a f2p player and have done 4 trade runs, got my mule with the quest and was doing my 16x16 scarecrow quest (witch is .. yes useless as f2p) I grew everything in the wild hidden from others,, even had 15 grapevine trees.. So please stop complaining that the game is not playable as f2p cause it is.. Just higher risk vs reward! BTW i loved the game so much that I will become a patron,, Why you may ask? Because in my gaming days you had to pay to play a game and that is how I will support the game I enjoy even though I am a casual player!
To ITPalg: Actually there are public farms where you can grow them... just use google...