Tomorrow will be two weeks after the launch of ArcheAge. Instead of rehashing what has gone wrong since then, let’s take a look at what has gone right and what has gotten fixed.
The queues have for all intents and purposes has been fixed! All the items that should have been there at launch are now present and are working great. Realm status this morning was a nice beautiful blue, no wait and a reasonable population. Last night realm status was high or there was a low queue lasting a whopping 15mins. Additionally, they pulled down restrictions on character creation on Kyrios. Hat’s off for Trion to finally addressing the situation and getting things up to snuff.
Additionally, it appears that they have added more Patron time to account for the massive launch fumble. At least for me, it looks like they added one month of Patron time to my account. I am hoping that they did that for all other Patrons as well. It is the right thing to for the epically flubbed launch. I know it was mentioned elsewhere what other measures were taken so go check out Massively which has been covering it pretty well.
Perhaps one of the reasons the two week milestone is important, property will be able to be destroyed for the first time since Head Start. That’s right, any property that was placed on the first day of Head Start and their owner has not paid taxes, can have their property destroyed to make way for new property. Let me tell you, I have it all scoped out and ready to go on Friday the 26th. Scarecrow and house plans will be on the hotkey bar and my plan of attack mapped out on paper. With any luck I’ll be able to snag at least one property for my 16x16 farm. If I can get a spot for a house too, it will be like winning the lottery. At least if I can get the farm here, I can do all my farming from one territory, seconds away from each other, which is pretty huge.
The game as a whole isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be at higher levels, 30+, where zones become PvP oriented. Essentially, those zones go through stages from peacetime, various danger levels to all out war. As you may expect, during peacetime enemy factions can not attack each other unless they flag themselves for PvP. The various danger levels allow faction PvP with no PvP honor to be earned or lost. War is reached once enough kills are achieved in the danger phase. While in war, each faction can win or lose honor points. With a little awareness, it is easy enough to manage PvE content mixed with farming to avoid PvP altogether. Exping in PvP zones have not been horrible in the various danger level periods as long as you keep your head on a swivel and stay in reach of other members of your faction.
Additionally make sure you over level every quest you can. To over level a quest, simply kill or gather up to 50% more of what is required to complete the quest. Make sure you keep an eye on the objective counter in the middle of your screen to make sure it pops up with an update. If it fails to show, either you reached the over level maximum or the quest may not be able to be over leveled. I highly suggest you do this when you hit the PvP zones, but if you have the time, do it with every quest where feasible. As an additional side bonus, you will get more loot drops for you to open for cash and sometimes items.
Leveling up professions is very very slow, at least for alchemy. The initial two levels of healing pots yield you a mere 3 points of progress per combine. To get to the third tier of healing pots, you need 10,000 points… Yeah, It’s that far off. Additionally, remember that you have to grow, steal or buy your materials so there is a ton of effort to be put into it. Also, looking at the tree, all the pots grow on each other, each level up needs a stack of 10 potions of the lower level… Now granted, you can grow all this stuff and not follow the WoW model and have to scour zones for it, you need lots of land to progress it at a decent clip. I am not sure of the other professions, but a cursory view shows a similar pyramid scheme.
Mobs are now starting to use CC a bit more. I have been stunned, bubbled etc. more as I reach 40. This is a great thing to have happen and I argue should be happening in the mid to late 20s just to get you prepared for PvP. Beating mobs 1v1 is generally a no contest fight, even the “elite” or buffed up version of normal mobs. I am curious to see if I can take on critters with more stars just to see if I can do it, albeit a massive waste of potions.
Mana gets more and more tight as you level, at least for my Stone Arrow build. I am burning through quest food like no one’s business. About every 5-6 mobs requires a chow down on food from the mid 30’s on. Perhaps that is more aligned to the fact you are using more mana required skills as more are available to you. I started to level up cooking but man it’s a long haul to get even close to what I am getting now via quests.
Well, now that they have finally made the game accessible, I will stick it out to 50 and continue to farm and craft consumables when questing zones are in Danger/War. After that, I’ll figure out if I want to continue playing. I’m not much of a PvPer or a crafter so I am not sure how much I will enjoy the ‘endgame’ but I’ll get to 50 and find out then ;) Worse comes to worse, Ill trade or sell for the lowest amount possible for all my deeds to Alysiana for her crafting empire!
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