Game Review: Archeage

By Nydia Tungsten & Brandi Streusel Tungsten

Part One

At first, I was very leery of the game, ArcheAge by Trion Worlds. I looked at the trailers and still had that bad taste in my mouth from League of Legends. But my friend, Ranchan, assured me it wasn’t anything like League of Legends, that these trailers actually portrayed the game as it was. So, I went ahead and created a Firran character in the game (Cat people…yes furry). They have three other races to choose from as well: Elves, Nuians and Harani. They are split into two factions (WoW flashback) with two races on each side

   You start out in a small village with small quest that will let you level up fast, but what you see in the village, and almost every other village you visit has blue glowing tables to help with your crafting. They are kind of like WoW, but these crafting benches go into more detail than I have seen in any other MMO.
There is a lot of crafting involved in a lot of missions, and a lot of ways for you to earn in-game money: From an outside comment, “as a game with strong sandbox influence, the majority of the content in game is generated by players. ArcheAge features 21 different crafting professions that help to fill the world with everything from potions and weapons to warships and houses.”

There is the Labor Point system, LP for short, which I think is very unique in the MMO industry. This is how they explain it:

“Labor Points” Almost every craft based, non quest action costs labor points to perform. The cost can be as small as 1-2 points for small things like picking flowers and as large a several dozen for more advanced actions like building. Labor Points are gained/refilled over time. A non-premium user will gain 5 points per 5 minutes of play and 0 points per 5 minutes while offline. A premium member will gain 10 points every 5 minutes and 5 points every 5 minutes while offline. The System is rounding up for example something cost 10 Labor Points and your Veteran Rank which gives 5% Labor Point reduce it still cost 10 Labor Points to craft.

There are the classes you can choose from and you get three of them as you progress, so you can choose from any of the ten classes in the game for a unique combination that suits you.  There are even arrows at your feet to help guide you along to your active quests, some people will say these are being held by the hand, but I disagree. It is up to you to interpret where you are and the routes you take, going in straight lines everywhere is not an option here.  The story line I am following is very well written and voiced. The writers should try writing for movies because I have found myself disappointed that the story line would pause until I reached the next milestone of it.

   The Graphics are from “CryEngine 3”. Look for yourself:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oT506JrOX0Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT506JrOX0Q )

This is the official trailer to the game and so far it is holding very true to my expectations through that video. I am only a level 16, so far, as I haven’t been able to play a lot of it but I expect good things of it. You can even have your own land to place a garden for growing your own crops and animals for quests as well as a house or even a castle. This ability is only available for paid patrons of the game, but there are plenty of public garden spaces to use as well. The only catch is other players can harvest after your things have been mature for 24 hours.

Now we come to the only problems I have found with the game and it IS the fact that it is an open world. There are only certain areas you can own land and those have filled up fast already. So the likelihood of you actually getting to build a house are very slim The homes that are there are bunched VERY close together and making them a very unattractive option. Your only option is to find a hidden area, grow what you need and hope you get back to it before someone destroys it or steals it. I have had two friends who have their “hidden” gardens raided.

I won’t bother to open the local chat tab because of all the spamming that goes on with offers to “Buy gold here! We have the best gold prices @wepromisewewon’tscrewyou.com!” Those spammers spoil many of a MMO and they rip people off. Other free MMO’s have found a way to keep the rampant spam off their servers and I hope Trion Worlds will do the same soon.

    In my play through, you can see me create my avatar. One of the drawbacks to me is with the eyes…. They provide very little selection and I would like to see them expand on that. This is my first time play through. Give it a look and let me know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQlm2djv5pg

If you would like to try it for yourself: http://www.trionworlds.com/archeage/en/

 And a few more videos you might enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MO8fL2jYUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piG3AmM3Pu8&list=PLXI4IP7MnwtZ5M5bCAb8QKuQc-8SpdZW6

Part Two

Okay, I have been playing it for a few weeks now and discovered a few more things about the game. They have a court system where you can be on the jury. At first, you may think this may be a good thing by keeping the griefers on the straight and narrow. Well, it doesn’t seem to work. This system actually encourages griefers because it is the only way the players can become “Pirates”, so they grief more players on a larger scale and get rewarded for it.

While this is technically a free to play game, some of the quests you are given require you to grow items to complete them. The only way to grow what you need is to own land, which you can only do if you are a paying account. There are free, public gardens, but you are limited to what you can grow there.

If you are a player that doesn’t really enjoy PvP games and are hoping to stay safe in non PvP areas….sorry, there are none. Enemy factions can roam freely over all the continents, let alone part of the quest lines will send you into one so you need to go in order to finish the quest that will allow you to build a bigger farm.

  So, you see, there are many draw backs, and there have been times I just wanted to scream in frustration. But it’s beauty of graphics and physics keeps dragging me back. So, in the overall scope of things, I will have to give it a reluctant thumbs up and recommend you to look it over and decide for yourself if it is something you will enjoy.

As always, until next time,  GOOD GAMING TO YOU!

Nydia Tungsten