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First impressions
Somewhat of a wall of text and I apologize for that. The original (that I posted on another forum) included pictures and better formatting, but I cba adjusting to this forum's syntax.
Enjoying it so far, even though it's tab target/quite generic leveling. It's probably all the sandbox features that keep me motivated. Leveling is pretty fast, so getting to level cap doesn't probably take a long time. It doesn't however feel grindy even though there are kill x/interact with y quests, leveling overall feels very fluid, quests nicely guide you from zone to zone so you don't need to keep running around for longer periods of time, very streamlined.
While the combat is tab target, it increases it's depth by having a lot of combos, which are one spells reaction to another spells effect. For example if I cast a Lightning Strike on an enemy and then throw a Tsunami spell on him, he'll get extra damage from Tsunami because he was "electricified" by the Lightning Strike.
World is beautiful (something azn games excel at actually), I love seeing player made farms occupy the land out in the open. Housing here is not instanced, so you can see zones where you can place houses all over the world. Even the early level zones have housing areas, although yet to see any player house due to the game just releasing.
Some textures, models and spell gfx don't look too good (for example grass or frostbolt animation), but the rest of them are very appealing (for example lightning strike animation).
I was pleasantly surprised that Archeage didn't go the usual asian way of doing armors/weapons/character models AKA making weapons oversized and armor bulky and female armor... severly lacking. Instead they picked a more western approach of non-ridiculousness. It's still fantasy, but much less so.
While we're at armor sets, every player can wear any type of armor (light, medium, heavy) they want, but each provides their own benefits, for example light armor gives more benefits to caster classes. And while we're at classes:
Every player chooses 3 classes they'll play with. First is chosen on char creation, second at lvl 5, third at lvl 10, so you get them fast. With leveling you gain skill points with which you choose abilities or passives from one of those classes. Obviously skill points are limited, so you will not be able to max out all 3 classes, but instead will have to make a "build" out of those 3 classes. You could make a super hybrid that has a few points in each class, or you could make a very 1 class oriented build, but take a skill or two from the other two classes because they synergize with your "main" class. The classes to choose from are:
- Combat (melee/warrior type class)
- Conjury (heavy crowd control class)
- Protection (defensive class)
- Will (kind of a mix of crowd control and buffing)
- Necromancy (summoner / caster type)
- Archery (ranged/archer type)
- Magic (standard caster/mage type)
- Calling (rouge type class)
- Artistry (buffing/healing class)
- Devotion (healing class)
So taking in account that you can mix 3 of those, there's a lot of combinations to customize your character. Even more considering there's different skill distributions. The cool thing about this: you can change any of those classes any time you want (for a small fee). The skills/abilities of classes level up as well (as you play them), so you cannot switch the class and be instantly supergood at it.
I was also surprised at how good they utilized physics of CryEngine3, considering it's an MMORPG and physics system isn't usually a requirement. Probably haven't discovered all of it, but I did notice the game has ragdolls, character collision (you can actually slowly push someone) and for example rivers have current, so if you jump in one it'll take you away slowly. Other objects like boats have physics too.
These was my first impression based on level 1-20 gameplay. I am looking forward to messing around with all the sandbox features in the future, too.
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ADDED
Some sandbox first impressions
Crafting/economy is pretty deep, there's a load of materials/items in the game from different professions that you need for endgame products, it's all connected.
Crafted gear is actually much better than the gear you get from PvE, which imo is awesome. For example level 27 set I crafted was better than the level 33 gear I had from questing rewards. Was really impressed how they've done the crafting system, since most other generic MMOs have you spam crafting useless stuff till max level, where as here you already get useful stuff even on lower levels, while in endgame crafting gear still remains the best.
Farming is also a cool feature, basically you stake a claim in a region where your plants will be safe from other players. You could of course plant anywhere in the world without a claim, but if they discover your plants they can be easily looted by players. For example we've had some guildies find secret areas of the region and plant there so their shit doesn't get found/stolen, most of us use farm claims though. Regions have different climates and these effect how long the plant will grow (for example banana tree grows fastest in a jungle region).
In the case of looting/killing players of the same faction players get criminal points and if they're killed they'll be sent to court and sentenced to prison or even set free by player jury. The criminal of course has the chance to talk to jury and convince them to set him free, while the jury has a list of all his criminal deeds that were discovered - if they killed someone you see a blood stain on the floor and you can pick it as evidence, if they stole some shit you see footprints that can also be picked and sent to court as evidence.
Trading is an awesome feature, basically it works like this: you craft a packet of regional goods in an area and then transport it to another area. The further you travel, the better the reward will be. The more this particular packet of regional goods is traded, the lesser the reward will be, so it's good if you research what is currently worth trading. You can also make uncommon/rare goods packs, which bring you more profit, but also cost more to craft.
The key about trading is that you can't just teleport with the good pack to your final destination, you have to transport it yourself. If you go on foot you'll be very slow, so people use donkeys on land (which are still slow) or do it over sea with boats, which of course presents another risk - player pirates. If you get killed your goods pack is dropped and pirates can take it and turn it in themselves for the reward.
Reward for trading is either gold or some other currency with which you can buy blueprints for ships, houses, etc.
Exploration - the ocean is big and it has a bunch of uncharted islands you can stumble upon. We even found this spooky island engulfed in fog.
Comments
Unplayable due to latency or?
I played yesterday for about 3 hours, no queue, no harder lag but i also have not done PvP yet.
Nice game from what i saw, even if i dont expected the safe zones to be that huge ..
The crafting also seems pretty importand, i have to get into that soon as well
I like it ^^
I've been playing the game for a little over a week now, and it's one of the better MMORPGs that I've played. It's got great depth to it, awesome crafting, great graphics, good story, etc. It's just got the whole package. I can't see why anyone Wouldn't like this game.
I will Definitely be playing it for a long time.
From playing the russian beta, reached lvl 39, having played a lot of every bits of the game, i will say it's a mixture of an "ogame" / eve - like, in a medieval era, granted that you begin as a miserable peasant, with trading routes to deliver goods for either a good amount of money or special coins that allows you to buy house / ships / caravans / "tank" / siege weapon crafting recipes.
It has some of the "eve" online progression in trading / crafting skills, and it's a huge grind to get to max in one profession, but it's well worth leveling them up.
It's a game that requires patience, it's "slow paced", you're not in a hurry there, i like the fact you have to use airship to deliver your heavy packages, it kind of "force" you to socialize with people along the way and get together to protect yourselves from the possible pirates / player pk (if you deliver your goods in "warzone" areas, the more risks you take, the more rewarding if you manage to deliver your crafting goods to the npc, and the price you get depends also from your trading skill level. (the more you trade / use trading routes and successfully deliver, the more you gain exp for the trading skill.)
There's also pve and pvp, one thing i have a hard time with are lvl 34 / 35 zones that forces you to encounter the other factions and make your quests a pain in the ass to validate / do.
It's a slow leveling process, i mean, as you begin with your "feets" to deliver goods / packs, you will then get a donkey, you can level up the donkey so he can travel a bit faster, you can equip him with "shields" / pet equipment allowing him + 5 % speed, some other + 10 %, after that if you save up enough delphic star you will be able to craft some kind of "car" or "bus" especially made for packs transportation and so on, and so on, with different level and tier of these machines... Like an "o game" from a lot of aspect of the game, granted you don't risk to loose "everything" (not your machines / equipment) but only your cargo if you get killed. (and sometimes it can be raging when it's very valuable, but nothing that can't be made in matter of hours )
i like it, it's fun, it's slow paced, and it's very deep / complex, the big + is the entire game being open world.
you can play the game the English patch didn't work for me but they show you exactly where to go.
for free its great I cant see me buying it,it will only work if its free with a cash shop.
dawn load and play I recommend it.
Some sandbox first impressions
Crafting/economy is pretty deep, there's a load of materials/items in the game from different professions that you need for endgame products, it's all connected.
Crafted gear is actually much better than the gear you get from PvE, which imo is awesome. For example level 27 set I crafted was better than the level 33 gear I had from questing rewards. Was really impressed how they've done the crafting system, since most other generic MMOs have you spam crafting useless stuff till max level, where as here you already get useful stuff even on lower levels, while in endgame crafting gear still remains the best.
Farming is also a cool feature, basically you stake a claim in a region where your plants will be safe from other players. You could of course plant anywhere in the world without a claim, but if they discover your plants they can be easily looted by players. For example we've had some guildies find secret areas of the region and plant there so their shit doesn't get found/stolen, most of us use farm claims though. Regions have different climates and these effect how long the plant will grow (for example banana tree grows fastest in a jungle region).
In the case of looting/killing players of the same faction players get criminal points and if they're killed they'll be sent to court and sentenced to prison or even set free by player jury. The criminal of course has the chance to talk to jury and convince them to set him free, while the jury has a list of all his criminal deeds that were discovered - if they killed someone you see a blood stain on the floor and you can pick it as evidence, if they stole some shit you see footprints that can also be picked and sent to court as evidence.
Trading is an awesome feature, basically it works like this: you craft a packet of regional goods in an area and then transport it to another area. The further you travel, the better the reward will be. The more this particular packet of regional goods is traded, the lesser the reward will be, so it's good if you research what is currently worth trading. You can also make uncommon/rare goods packs, which bring you more profit, but also cost more to craft.
The key about trading is that you can't just teleport with the good pack to your final destination, you have to transport it yourself. If you go on foot you'll be very slow, so people use donkeys on land (which are still slow) or do it over sea with boats, which of course presents another risk - player pirates. If you get killed your goods pack is dropped and pirates can take it and turn it in themselves for the reward.
Reward for trading is either gold or some other currency with which you can buy blueprints for ships, houses, etc.
Exploration - the ocean is big and it has a bunch of uncharted islands you can stumble upon. We even found this spooky island engulfed in fog.