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ArcheAge CBT3 Review, Part 1

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Admin




This is it, ladies and gentlemen, our review of ArcheAge’s third
closed beta test. This is intended to be the most in-depth review
article you’ll find anywhere, but it’s by no means definitive. We might
forget a detail here or there, so feel free to leave a comment on this
post if you’re confused or have a suggestion to make.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Download, Installation, and Patching

We’ll be honest: ArcheAge’s installer/patcher isn’t the best we’ve
ever dealt with. It’s based on a custom BitTorrent client and
immediately connects you to three web seeds (basically http download
servers masquerading as BitTorrent seeds) that XLGAMES has set up with a
CDN (content delivery network). After connecting to the web seeds, the
BitTorrent client uses DHT and other peer sharing methods to find other
ArcheAge fans who are also patching their game. It doesn’t ever connect
to a traditional BitTorrent tracker as far as we can tell, which is an
interesting decision.


In spite of all these technical details, ArcheAge’s intaller/patcher
seems to operate very inefficiently, almost as if there’s a soft
downstream/upstream speed limit imposed or if the client limits the
amount of connected peers too heavily (there are no toggle-able options
within the client, unlike some others based on BitTorrent). I
was able to open the main ArcheAge download torrent in my favorite
BitTorrent client, uTorrent, and my download speed jumped to five times
the speed that I was getting using XLGAMES’ client (identified as
“x2client” in uTorrent’s peer list).

Our recommendation? Find a better, more efficient BitTorrent backend
to base ArcheAge’s installer/patcher client off of, or fix/tweak the
existing one, and this discrepancy should vanish.

Account Login, Character Creation

We just want to make a quick statement about ArcheAge’ login screen:
we think the second closed beta’s animated version was better. Not that
CBT3′s randomized login screens were bad, they just were boring in
comparison. Static images just don’t give the same visual impact upon
first launch as gorgeously-rendered trees and grass swaying in the wind.
That’s our honest opinion, make of it what you will.



We’ve got a lot more to say about ArcheAge’ character creation tool,
so sit down and buckle up. Let’s start with the tool’s limitations: it’s
not like Aion’s oe EVE’s character generators, you can’t modify bone
structure or body height or chest size, etc. There also not many
hairstyles and colors, faces, or decorations available, though the ones
that are available are high-quality (check out that Heath Ledger Joker
facepaint, we hope it makes it into the retail version).

Having said all that, XLGAMES is very aware of its character
creator’s current limits and has publicly declared in the past that
eventually it will be powerful enough to sate the creative appetites of
all but the most picky players, so we’re not too worried about this
feature at the moment. If the tool’s power doesn’t increase by ArcheAge’s open beta, however, we will become very concerned.




Part of character creation is choosing a class. We’ll cover
how specific classes perform in-game a bit later, but for now we’ll say
that ArcheAge has the best class-choosing system of any MMO, ever.
Choose three schools of learning and combine them to form one of 120
possible professions. Do you know of a MMORPG released within the last
five years with the same setup? We don’t.

Tutorial (Starter) Areas and Questing

Let’s get this straight for the hardcore anti-questing crowd out there: you can stop doing quests after you get your free horse and never worry about doing them again.
You’ll miss out on a good chunk of experience points that makes
leveling nice and breezy, but you will probably be able to keep up with
the quest-lovers by gathering and crafting, if that’s what you’re into
(seriously, gathering and crafting in this game give considerable
amounts of XP, unlike some other games).

For the folks who prefer to do quests, whether it’s because they like
being told what to do (sounds kinky) or they just like reading lore:
there’s plenty of interesting quests for you to complete. We’ll get to
listing examples a little later, though. Let’s first talk about the
tutorials areas themselves and how they’re unique.

Each race has its own unique starting area, which is
an upgrade from games like TERA which lump all the races into one area
that gets more and more repetitive on each playthrough. Fresh Nuian
characters start near the coast and journey further inland as they learn
more about the game. Elves start in a heavily forested area inland and
journey outwards as they progress, as do the Ferres (on the other
continent).




Each starting area serves the same basic function, to instruct new
players in how ArcheAge works, but each does it in a slightly different
way. To teach a Nuian player to climb object, the game asks you to
retrieve an item that was taken from a child and now is stuck at the top
of a tall, slender tree. To teach an elf to climb, the game asks the
player to plant a quick-growing vine seed, then climb the vine and
extract a fruit from the top of an extremely tall enchanted tree. Each
zone has its own flavor, so if you want to make alts of every race,
you’ll never have to do the same exact thing twice if you don’t want to.

General quests sometimes boil down to the usual “retrieve X and kill
Y” missions, but often ArcheAge tries to introduce twists into the
system to keep things fresh. For example, there’s an interesting quest
midway through the Nuian introductory area which tasks you with setting
fire to rabbit holes in a farm in order to flush the annoying critters
out of their home and into open air where you can slaughter them. Upon
finding a hole, you whip out a torch from nowhere, light up the hole,
and wait for about five small rabbits to spawn, then gleefully destroy
them. Upon killing your quota of cute farm pests, you’re tasked with
taking out the biggest, baddest bunny on the ranch. If you go into the
fight with the named mob expecting it to be easy, you’re in for a
surprise…maybe even death!




Another interesting facet of ArcheAge’s quests is the idea of underachieving and overachieving the goals given to you.
Some quests can be turned in even if you don’t finish them completely,
even if you only kill or gather half of what the quest giver wanted. In
that case your reward will be less than the regular reward. The same
quests can also be overachieved, by killing or gathering or doing more
than necessary, then turning in the quest. In that situation your reward
is more than normal. It’s really an interesting system, especially if
you are in a hurry to blast through an area’s content or if you’re the
kind of person to take your dear sweet time killing sexy succubi for
hours.

Honestly, quests in ArcheAge are a means to an end. They convey lore,
help characters level, and give people who are confused or lost or
bored some direction to go in the game. For people who know exactly what
they want to do, quests can be safely passed up and returned to later,
regardless of level. In fact, we dropped by the elf starter area on our
Nuian character and most of their quests were open for us to do too.
Part 2 and 3 of this review will be posted as soon as they’re ready.

Part 2 includes…

• Equipment, Items, Drops, and Quest Rewards
• Exploring the Land and Getting Around
• Player-vs-Player Content, Class Balance

Part 3 covers…

• Gathering Materials, Crafting, and Labor Points
• Building Houses and Boats
• Exploring the Sea
• Graphics and Glitches

gut is, dass die besten items von spielern gecraftet werden. auch spassig, dass jede klasse alles tragen kann. nen mage mitm bogen, 2-handschwert und in platte? kein problem. hast dann natürlich schlechtere stats.
balancing wird wohl sehr schwer. du kannst 128 verscjiedene kombies haben. es gibt nicht nur melee oder nur mage, tank. du kannst nen melee machen, der zaubern kann oder nen mage mit guten melee werten. hier kann man sich das mal etwas angucken.
http://www.archeage.com/en/contents/gameIntros/11


ArcheAge CBT3 Review, Part 2

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Admin





Equipment, Items, Drops, and Quest Rewards

Gear in ArcheAge isn’t easy to get unless you buy it from stores or
get it from quests, and gear from those sources normally isn’t that
great. The best gear is crafted and upgraded with enchantment stones,
and good gear (green, blue, etc.) is also rarely dropped by mobs. If you
get lucky, mobs will also drop the stones that you need to upgrade your
existing gear.

Unlike some other games, you can literally wear and wield whatever
you want in ArcheAge. Want to be a axe-toting mage? Then do it, but know
that your spells aren’t getting any extra power from your weapon like
they would if you were carrying a staff. Want to play a warrior who
wears priestly cloth robes? ArcheAge won’t stop you. However, know this:
the more of one type of armor you wear, the better the armor performs.

Quest rewards normally consist of either food, potions, or gear, and
food’s probably the best out of those three. Why? Because food gives
some of the best buffs in the game, there’s so many types, and it takes a
fair amount of ingredients to craft (easy to get if you plant a garden
outside your home, however). Quest gear isn’t the worst in the world,
and a lot of people will probably be using it because it’s easy to get.
We just hope they don’t mind running around in shorts whose name
translates to “An Old Soldier’s Pants.”


Rings, earrings, necklaces, and other jewelry are extremely rare to
drop. We witnessed only one earring and one necklace drop (not for us,
either), and the one necklace we stumbled across was a quest reward. If
this drop rate holds true for retail release, crafting jewelry may be a
big business in ArcheAge!

As for the question of why someone would bother to kill bosses at all if crafted gear is better than dropped gear: bosses drop mats to craft the best gear. There’s your answer. Now you have a reason to do both!

Exploring the Land and Getting Around

When wanderlust grabs you and doesn’t let go, there’s only one thing
to do: explore until you run into invisible teleport boundaries, and
then go running off in the opposite direction to do it all over again.
This is what we did, and we’ve got to hand it to XLGAMES: when this
world is finished, when all the sections of all the continents are
ironed out and ready for virtual tourists, this world is going to feel
huge. Bigger than big. Gigantic.

At the moment, however, the world seems a bit small, and it’s no
illusion. Only certain sections of the map were available for
exploration during CBT3, and if you tried to go past them, you’d start
seeing graphical anomalies and eventually be teleported back to the
nearest town. Is this how it’s going to work at retail? Maybe if you
insist on traveling past of the borders of the world map, but otherwise
there shouldn’t be any invisible teleporting barriers, so don’t be
worried.




Regardless of your race, you’ll receive a completely free mount
around level 4 and cherish it for the rest of your time in ArcheAge.
Your mount will help you (and one other person, if need be) get from
point A to point B in a fraction of the time it would take on foot. It
isn’t just an item taking up space in your inventory, however. It’s a
real, living entity, it can be killed and it doesn’t regenerate health
when it’s not by your side.

You could go to battle while mounted, but it’s normally not the best
option due to the lack of mount skills at start and the length of
skill cooldowns. Mounts can be equipped with armor, level up and learn
new skills (both for combat and travel) if you spend enough time
killing things with them. You can summon or despawn your mount if you
want, but it’s technically better to have it follow you around instead.
Why? So you can jump on it immediately instead of waiting a couple
seconds for it to appear. Really, our only gripe with XLGAMES’ implementation of mounts is that you can’t name them. Yet.

Other modes of transportation include mechanical carriages which roll
through areas at nearly the speed of horses and allow anyone hitch a
ride for free, airships which fly above areas a little less than the
speed of a mount but bypass all ground obstacles and take you from town
to town, and in-town transportation that moves you from one side of a
large city to the other extremely quickly.

It has been mentioned that players may be able to own a carriage and
charge for rides, though why anyone would do so is beyond us (unless
the carriages become considerably faster and safer than horses). As for
airships, they are currently the best form of travel for folks who like
taking screenshots, because they give the best view of the world XLGAMES
has lovingly crafted.

Class Balance and Player-vs-Player Content

Let’s get this bit out of the way quickly: if XLGAMES tried to
balance every class in ArcheAge, then we’d probably have to wait another
five years before the game got released. Balancing classes in ArcheAge
just isn’t going to happen, and it doesn’t need to happen, and anyone
complaining about “balance” after retail is probably crazy. ArcheAge
allows you to choose three professions and combine them to form a class.
There’s no limitations. XLGAMES has given us players freedom to
choose, and in doing so they’ve necessarily removed their hands from
forcing a rock-paper-scissors class balance.


PvP during CBT3 wasn’t even close to what it is planned to be by
retail. Few players bothered to kill each other outside of the 10 vs 10
battlegrounds, but some griefers would habitually destroy a rider’s
mount (most mounts could be one-shot at low levels and there seems to be
no penalty for doing so). The result was a lot of annoying running back
to stables to get your mount resurrected.

Retrievable PK blood splatters were implemented and working during
CBT3, as was the trial and prison mechanic, though they’re probably not
finalized. We didn’t get to personally experience any of that since we
(sensibly) didn’t bother to go on a murdering spree. Remember, blood can
only be picked up by someone who’s not the victim, so make some friends
before getting yourself killed!



As for battlegrounds themselves, they were mainly for fun and
bragging rights during CBT3. How battlegrounds work is this: you get
spawned into an instanced map with (hopefully) 19 other players, thus
forming two teams of 10. The objective you’re given is to basically
carry out a 15-minute arcade FPS-style deathmatch, where every kill gets
you a certain amount of points (100). You get 500 bonus points for
staying alive the whole match, 500 for killing the most people compared
to the rest of your team, and 500 for killing the most out of everyone
in the deathmatch. At the end of the 15 minutes the team with the most
points (most kills) wins and its members are awarded an extra 1000
points.

The physical battleground itself is the interior of a castle.
Scattered crates give players cover from spells and cannonfire that come
from above. The cannons are reachable by ladder and not very flexible
in their firing arcs (also seemingly underpowered during this beta
test). If you manage to survive long enough to kill a few players, you
can unlock special skills/summons like clockwork sentry turrets and
minibosses to send against the enemy (as seen in the CBT3 trailer).

We could include ship vs ship battles in this section, but they were
sufficiently awesome enough to earn their own paragraph in the next part
of this review!

Also, if you’re wondering why we didn’t talk about sieges, it’s because they weren’t ready for this test.

Part 3 of this review will be posted as soon as it’s ready.

Part 3 covers…

• Gathering Materials, Crafting, and Labor Points
• Building Houses and Boats
• Exploring the Sea
• Graphics and Glitches

soo closed beta 4 steht vor der tür. interesant wird sein, dass sie den nördlichen kontinent freigeben, der sozusagen der 0.0 sektor wie in eve ist. er kann besiedelt werden, städte und burgen können gebaut werden und der kampf um die ressourcen ist somit eröffnet

http://archeage-online.com/post/1718109326

nein die beta is immer noch nur für koreaner oder welche mit freunden in korea diese beta geht nun 80 tage. glaub die übernächste wird dann erweitert.

es kann noch so vielseitig sein. ich hab festgestellt, dass das einzige was zählt, diel eigene langzeitmotivation is. und da hilft nur selber spielen aber ich bin verhalten optimistisch

richtig. aber die motivation, bzw meine motivation besteht nich darin, dass das spiel viele möglichkeiten bietet. z.b EVE es hat wahnsinnige möglichkeiten es ist abwechslungsreich. aber es hat mich nie gepackt
als gegenbeispiel, meine online rennerei. man fährt immer im kreis, aber es macht spass wie sau also simples konzept aber grosse wirkung. es hängt (wie miru richtig sagte) von einem selber ab.

cb4 (closed beta 4) login

ohweia



leider versteh ich kein wort

nochmal nen vid. aus ner früheren beta.

Neuer Teaser zur Closed Beta 4. er zeigt die freigabe/besiedelung des nördlichen kontinent (quasi der 0.0 sektor in eve)

Zitat

Compared to the 3rd closed beta testing, how much has the housing system been advanced?

Middle sized housing has been added as well as a large housing for guild. It is 2~3 floors and we didn't name it guild housing as an individual can own/build it. It's really expensive, so it perhaps it would last through the 80 days? (laugh)

The largest change is that the materials are carried, instead of being stored in inventory, to build the house. By doing so causes the need for sea trading and riding on the boat. The tree cut by the user goes into the inventory, but when refined in order to build a house it becomes a package. This does not go into the inventory and is carried on the back.

When a package is on the back, they cannot run so must travel in walking speed. When they ride on the horse, they can move a bit faster but the horse too will be walking. Boats and carriages do not have speed limit.

The special property of these packages is that when logged out or killed, it drops to the ground. So as it is not in the inventory there is a threat that its ownership may change anytime.

The existing continents will have housing area near city and thus less danger, but in the large third continent the distance is long so it is dangerous. Especially in order to cleanse the third continent and declare ownership of the land 'Akium' has to be carried on the back so until the very moment before the declaration of ownership is the danger. With the package on the back, it is impossible to teleport.

Meaning that another person can forcefully take it and declare the ownership of land. Since there has YET to be production system in the third continent, until then it must be refined and carried over by the boat. Pirates can steal these and use it.

Among the packages is old antiques and expensive items and may attach itself to the back of the character during hunting. The two original continent NPCs will give a lot of money for these items, but the user next to you may steal them. We think that this may add onto the excitement of the game. It's not just simply dropping an item but situation may differ according to user's choices.

heisst soviel wie, dass man ressourcen richtig/sichtbar transportieren muss wenn man häuser und andere dinge bauen will. die sachen passen NICHT ins inventar.

soo neuer trailer, der die neuen animationen im kampf zeigt. find die gegenüber der closed beta 3 nun richtig gut!! man sieht auch schön nen angriff auf ne burg
nach dem abspann das ende ist auch witzig



noch 16 std bis zur closed beta 4, die dann 80 tage dauern wird. wird dann ne menge neuer videos und livestreams geben

http://archeage-online.com/