Arche Age Beta

http://www.archeagegame.com/en/
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Arche Age Beta

#1 Post by Administrator » Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:59 pm

There's so much I could say about this game, but the short version is that it is awesome. While there still are a few things to work out before open beta, there are few game-breaking bugs. Occasional crashes and visual bugs do happen, but otherwise the game runs smoothly and functions as expected. Ignore the FPS display on some of these screenshots because I do not think it is very accurate; the game never actually feels like it is dipping into low framerates, even when in a populated city.

Classes & Skill System
If you're not already familiar with it, Arche Age is very open about what you are allowed to do. There really is no set classes. Sure, there are (currently) 120 class names, but you are not restricted. In reality, there are 10 base classes (but only certain ones can be your "first" class), and you choose up to 3 of them, allowing for 120 combinations. There is no downside to choosing more than one class. Additionally, you can swap them out at any time by visiting a resurrection shine or skill manager. You can also reset your skillpoints for any class tree at any time simply by clicking the button in your skill menu.

I really like this class system. First, it means if you want to try things out, you can just do it without having to make a new character and level back up to the max level. Second, you can quickly and easily change to fill whatever role is required of you. Third, it allows you to experiment and try new things without having to worry about becoming obsolete next patch.

Additionally, any character can wear any type of armor without restriction. Want to be a full-plate wearing mage? Do it! Maybe you want to be a tank but that plate armor doesn't have enough magic resist? Why not just wear cloth, but still go with sword and shield? Do whatever you want! There is, however, some minor bonuses to wearing a full set of the same type of armor. Cloth, of course, would boost your magic abilities, leather your crit rate and agility, and plate boosts your defense and resistance to being crowd-controlled.

Seriously, I love this kind of class system, so I'm going to give it a 10/10.


Graphics
OK. This game looks great and runs smooth. I never really feel like I'm getting low framerates. Even when a lot is going on. And I'm running this game on max settings. Textures are good, animations are beautiful, everything feels very polished. This level of detail and performance is very difficult to pull off in an MMO.
I think we're done here. Just look.
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Should have brought my bikini... Don't want this plate armor to rust.
Should have brought my bikini... Don't want this plate armor to rust.
Sure is quiet out here... I'm sure there won't be any pirates!
Sure is quiet out here... I'm sure there won't be any pirates!
10/10

*admittedly, there are a few bugs in the game related to LoD models and texture resolution, which appear to accumulate after running the game for a very long time. If you notice that some of the textures look distorted or bad in my screenshots, it is only because of that bug. Restarting the client fixes that.


Combat & Controls
Feels good, man. At first, movement felt a bit slippery due to the inertia. You kind of get used to the jerky movement in other MMOs (which we won't name here...) so when something smooth like this comes out, it almost feels wrong.

The input just works. You don't have to sit there and spam hotkeys for something to work. When you click on something, it does what it is supposed to do. Combat feels fairly fluid and you are free to move around while fighting so long as you are not channeling a skill. In short, you don't have to fight the game to make it do what you want it to do, and that's something that is rare to find. I know you guys are probably sick of seeing these 10-out-of-10s, but... deal with it.


Quests & Quest Rewards
Honestly, I would say this is fairly standard MMO questing. Talk to the guy, pick up the quest, go kill 10 of those things and come back. There are a few differences. Quests can be underachived or overachieved. Don't want to bother killing more of those things? Just turn in what you have, but take less reward. Alternatively, you can also kill extra, or pick up more items than is needed, or whatever it is that is asked of you, and gain extra experience and gold from it. It is a pretty cool system and I highly recommend you try to overachieve as many quests as you can.

You might also happen upon a few "hidden quests" from time to time. Usually, this is just something that pops up when you've killed a lot of one type of monster. There's no direct quest for it, you just get an extra blob of experience. And then there's also some secrets that aren't really quests. For example, in Hellswamp, there's a number of strange machines that you can find. Each machine will give a different key fragment, but even if you find them all, you're still missing the last piece. So how do you get that last piece? By killing the 4 different elite monsters in the zone and picking up the body parts. Take the body parts to the crematorium and you'll have activated a secret quest to repair the key! The key can then be used to weaken one of the world bosses in this zone.


Quest rewards are fairly standard. Most will just give money and experience. A few will give potions and food, which you will most definitely need. Occasionally, you'll get to choose an armor box. So what's this armor box all about? It is actually a fairly interesting way to go about it. In most MMOs, you gain gear one piece at a time. In Arche Age, you get a few pieces at once: either upper body, lowerbody, or helmet. You choose between cloth, leather, and plate, then 3 pieces (or 1 helmet) of that type.

Now here's the weird thing: those pieces are of random quality. You could get some nice purple equipment while your friend only got crappy greens. You then get to brag about it and berate him or her. What's not to like? Even if you get greens now, it will almost certainly be better than the purples (or even oranges) the you are wearing now! Now, I know it sounds really weird or bad at first, but I think you will like it when you get to try it. Plus, if you really want to guarantee good gear, you should be looking into crafting or dungeon farming, not quests!

While it doesn't do anything exceptionally cool, I'm not giving it a perfect score, but it still has some nice touches so I'll give it a 7/10



Dungeons
I've only tried 2 dungeons so far. They both have been interesting and challenging (for their level). They can be completed with a bit of trial and error. That is what I like. It shouldn't be too easy that you get it on your first try, nor should it be so obscure and hard that you need to look up guides or recruit high levels to complete the dungeon for you. And, with the class system being as it is, you can always change things up and try different strategies.

There is, however, a mentor/mentee system. In short, once you've completed a dungeon (and are a few levels over the dungeons bare minimum), you qualify to become a mentor. It gives you a quest to help out the newbies and explain to them how the dungeon works. You get Gilda Stars (which are very important!), and they get to complete a quest for extra equipment. It is a win-win situation.
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I don't feel like I know enough about dungeons to really comment on how they rate (as, we all know, the first dungeon will not be a good representitive of late-game dungeons), but I will say that I did have a lot of fun with it.


Crafting, Housing, Farming, and all that other stuff
This is where the game really shines. It is, after-all, made around being able to build things and actually affect the game world. If you intend to pick up this game, rush to max level and farm dungeons, you'll be disappointed. Crafting and exploring really are a lot of the fun in this game, and will very much tie into every other aspect of it. Do yourself a favor: take it slowly and toy around with things instead of grinding non-stop.

First things first, lets talk about farming and gathering. See, around the world, there are Public farms. Each farm will have a different list of what is allowed to be grown there. You might have an actual garden which allows you to grow up to 10 items at a time of wheat, barely, chickens, potatos, and things like that. You might also find an (tree-)nursury that allows you to place up to 5 grape vines, apple trees, hornberry trees, and a few others. The stables are, of course, where you go to raise your mounts, and the ranch is where you go to raise some livestock. You can open your farm overview at any time to check on the status of all your belongings on public farms, and it will conveniently even display the location of them on the map for you.
Welcome to Hellswamp! If you look to your left, you'll see a pile of decaying corpses. How festive!
Welcome to Hellswamp! If you look to your left, you'll see a pile of decaying corpses. How festive!
There are limitations to what you can put on these farms, of course. As I already stated, you can only put a certain number of resources on a farm, and only certain things are accepted to grow there. You cannot, for instance, grow strawberries at any public farm. So, what are the benefits of using the farms? Well, first, you do not have to pay the labor point cost to place them. If you try to place a tree or livestock outside of a public farm, it will cost 10 labor points, plants vary in cost. Second, your belongings are protected and unable to be stolen!

Wait, what? Your things can get stolen? Of course they can! If you plant things outside the farms, you better hide them good and hope nobody finds them, otherwise you're going to stumble across a crime scene (more on this later!). You will need to do this out of necessity and it is worth the risk, but you just need to be careful. Those resources will be needed to build cool things like ships or houses!

Speaking of ships... Guess who built a fancy new harpoon clipper this beta.
The wonderful port city of Lutesong Harbor in Villenelle.
The wonderful port city of Lutesong Harbor in Villenelle.
Now you know where to go to pick up (5) chicks.
Now you know where to go to pick up (5) chicks.
Dry dock complete. Got to start somewhere.
Dry dock complete. Got to start somewhere.
Frame is in place...
Frame is in place...
Prepping the wood-work.
Prepping the wood-work.
Almost done.
Almost done.
Pirate treasure!
Pirate treasure!
Just a lonely merchant watching the sun set.
Just a lonely merchant watching the sun set.
My ship is equipped with 1 forward harpoon (for hooking onto other ships, land, what-have-you), 1 portable harpoon, 2 scuba packs, 2 lanterns, and 1 bad-ass helmsman.

Crafting can be a lot of fun in this game, and it is really rewarding when you finally finish a big project such as a house or a boat. There are of course some restrictions and annoyances. Houses and farms can only be bought by patrons (paying members, but this status will also be available from in-game currency on release). You can only build in certain housing zones, which I fear will become too cramped and disorganized. There's a few other minor complaints, but the developers keep moving things around in the crafting department so we will just wait and see how things turn out.

As of right now, I'll give it an 8/10. I do really enjoy the crafting, I just want to see a few more tweaks.



Crime Time
Remember when I mentioned a crime scene earlier? I meant it. If you steal, assault, or murder, you have committed a crime. Depending on your larceny skill and the crime you have committed, you might leave behind evidence. If another player happens to notice it and takes the time out to report it, your crime score goes up. Once you reach 50+ crime score, you become a wanted individual, and upon your next death you'll be dragged off to the court room and face a jury of your peers.

No, really! There's an actual jury. And they are other players. So as you've already figured out, every time a trial is announced, the individual is immediately guilty of all charges and burned at the stake for witchcraft before the charges are even mentioned. Ok, well, every once in awhile someone is found innocent... but usually due to conflict of interest in the jury, or because the defendant said something funny.
Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?
Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?


Commerce
Commerce is another big part of the game. You want to gather your resources into a trade pack, then escort it to another location in the world for huge profit. If you trade within the same continent, you can get gold rewards. If you trade on the opposite continent (east/west opposite continent, that is), you can trade for Gilda Stars (trade in for components of ship, house, glider, or other awesome things at Mirage Island) or resources. Alternatively, you can take it up to the pirate haven of Freedich Island for an even bigger reward. In short, further distance and more risk = more profit!

Obviously, there has to be come sort of risk involved, right? Of course there is. Trade packs are heavy so will slow you down to a crawl. You cannot use portals while carrying a trade pack. And you can only carry one on your character at a time. Plus, it kind of paints a huge target on your back. The enemy faction, and even your own, will see that box of goodies and think themselves how nice it would be to have a new pair of shoes. If you're carrying a trade pack, I hope you have backup! You would also be wise to stick to peaceful areas where you cannot be attacked.
FYI, pirates took notice of me once I hit the open ocean. This trade pack was never seen again. If you have information leading to the arrest of those responsible, there's a gold reward in it for you!
FYI, pirates took notice of me once I hit the open ocean. This trade pack was never seen again. If you have information leading to the arrest of those responsible, there's a gold reward in it for you!
When you make a trade pack, you are guaranteed to get at least 20% of the profit from it, no matter who turns it in. The other 80% goes to the one that makes the final trade. All rewards will be mailed to you 22 hours after the trade was complete.

To assist in trades, there is a variety of tools available. You can get a donkey to help carry the load and get places quicker. You can get a farm tractor to carry 4 packs over land. You can use the public transportation (though you'll probably be PKed in the process!). You can use a variety of ships, each with different size cargo holds.

My first trade run attempt didn't go so well. I crafted it, escorted it out to the harbor, loaded it onto the ship and sailed off. Before too long, I noticed there was another harpoon clipper coming in. My ship took a harpoon to the side, and pirates used this to board us.

In another trade run, we crafted two packs and were outnumbered by a guild that was also higher level than us before we could even make it to the shore. They took both packs and... proceeded to walk around aimlessly. They had absolutely no clue what they were doing. At one point they tried loading it onto their rowboat, but once they seen we had two harpoon clippers they quickly abandoned that idea and came back in-land. What proceeded was a back-and-forth 2 hour PVP skirmish spanning 3 world zones before we had finally recovered both packs and safely delivered them to Freedich island while the aggressors were locked up in jail. It was sure a lot of fun, and you sure are a dick, Ikku!




Completely unrelated, but I thought I would share anyways:
This guy hasn't quite figured out how to boat.
This guy hasn't quite figured out how to boat.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#2 Post by lisa » Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:06 pm

That does actually look like a game I would enjoy playing, as opposed to just botting.

I had a look at getting into Alpha a week or so ago and they wanted $150, so yeah I will just wait for it to be released. Pretty sure I put my hand in for a beta key but haven't received any word on it so far.
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#3 Post by Administrator » Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:52 pm

You don't have to pay a dime. I didn't. The last beta they really dumped out a lot of beta keys. We expect the next beta to begin on the 28th, so be looking around various sites for beta keys. They have been fairly easy to get. I might also be able to snag one for you.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#4 Post by lisa » Tue Aug 19, 2014 12:17 am

I did the button for register for beta again on archage site.
Yeah seems they send out keys to a few game forums and such, would need good timing to get one off them I'd say, being in another country would make it harder lol
If you do manage to have a spare key I would appreciate it for a look ;)

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A few forums have rumours of a september release *shrug*
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#5 Post by lisa » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:53 am

when i logged in today I had a PM and got excited thinking it might be you sending me a code, turns out it was someone wanting my skype details so I can help them with their issues lol
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#6 Post by BlubBlab » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:15 am

Maybe they thought you were the Lisa from this film XD : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_%28film%29
Jack-of-all-trades, but master-of-only of a few :D

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#7 Post by Administrator » Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:54 pm

The next beta starts this Friday, the 22nd. This was announced yesterday, and some time today, the partner sites will be receiving their batches of keys. I will keep you updated; we always have a few extra on-hand.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#8 Post by lisa » Wed Aug 20, 2014 10:57 pm

BlubBlab wrote:Maybe they thought you were the Lisa from this film XD : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_%28film%29
I guess but that would make me around 55-60 years old lol
Administrator wrote:The next beta starts this Friday, the 22nd. This was announced yesterday, and some time today, the partner sites will be receiving their batches of keys. I will keep you updated; we always have a few extra on-hand.
Thanks =)
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#9 Post by lisa » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:03 am

yay I am in Beta, 5 hours until it starts, I'll be asleep of course but when I wake up, look out =)
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#10 Post by Administrator » Fri Aug 22, 2014 9:24 pm

I've got two extra keys for anyone that wants them. First come first serve.

TMWW-9PLC-YMHD-PYPE-ZNXH
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#11 Post by Bubi » Sat Aug 23, 2014 1:08 am

There are still keys left.
Just got one from.

http://www.gamona.de/games/archeage:gew ... gn=1854085

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#12 Post by lisa » Sat Aug 23, 2014 1:13 am

only played for a couple hours so far, feels like most other games at this stage.
Get quest. kill stuff. hand in quest. lvl up. gear up.

I came across what I thought was a public farm with scarecrows but I had no idea how to use it and I think people had claimed all the spots already *shrug*

I think if I am going to get into the game I need to work out how to craft/grow stuff and then how to make a boat or house ;)
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#13 Post by rock5 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:53 am

Ideally the game should introduce you to it's different features through the initial quests.
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#14 Post by lisa » Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:37 am

I think I was just at the wrong kind of farm, found another place with no scarecrows and I just went in and planted my potato seeds.
Grew them and then harvested them.

Haven't really been able to play much unfortunately as I have the flu at the moment =(
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#15 Post by Administrator » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:58 pm

Yes, if you keep following the quest line, it'll explain the different kinds of farms and stuff, and also give you your first scarecrow. Those scarecrows are actually private farms. A player places a scarecrow to claim land as their own for farming needs. They can place any kind of plant or animal on it they want, as well as tradepacks and things like that.

Public farms will be fenced in and have a sign at the gate that tells you what you are allowed to grow there.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#16 Post by lisa » Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:47 am

Seems like a game you would play with others, as opposed to doing lots of solo stuff.

Thought I would try something different as my first char, hmm can't remember name atm, class name starts with O.
Feels like a sorceror, I attack a mob and have it at 25% by time it reaches me and my HP is like 10% when I down mob. So it takes 90% my hp in the time I take 25% of it's HP lol
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#17 Post by Administrator » Sun Aug 24, 2014 2:53 pm

Occultist, maybe?

Some class combinations don't work right away, but are super powerful once you get geared. You could play as any class you want then later switch out for something different. You'll keep your character level, but will have to level the new class levels. It's not as bad as it sounds. The good thing is that once you level the class, it is permanant; you can switch around and retain those class levels you've already earned.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#18 Post by lisa » Sun Aug 24, 2014 9:44 pm

yeah that was it.

I will have to go back to start area I think, I thought I did all the quests but I didn't do any for farming *shrug*

I didn't get to play at all yesterday =(
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Re: Arche Age Beta

#19 Post by kkulesza » Fri Aug 29, 2014 8:55 am

I've played Closed Beta Events 3 and 4.
So far I really like this game.
It's so much better then RoM (RoM is the only MMORPG I've played before).
Few things i like the most in Archeage:
- Gliding. It's fun and the views are nice.
- Sailing. The sound of sea and ship is very relaxing to me. Also you can have plenty of adventures on the sea.
- Labor point system. I hope this will give human crafters equal chances with bot crafters.
- Physics. It's a great tool to expand general utility of various objects.
- Other forms of multiplayer cooperation. Forming donkey caravans or sailing together are very fun. These are nice alternatives for instances and siege wars.

There are some minor things i don't like, but it is beta. I hope they'll fix those things.

One major issue worries me the most. It's the Hackshield Pro from Ahn Lab. This might be a big issue for botters.

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Re: Arche Age Beta

#20 Post by ZZZZZ » Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:22 am

kkulesza wrote:One major issue worries me the most. It's the Hackshield Pro from Ahn Lab. This might be a big issue for botters.
Not just botters. Hack shields are notorious for causing issues on systems when they have never even run a 'hack' program before..... More often then not it just forces people to give up any chance of playing with it.

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